Dark Song

by Feehan, Christine

Ferro, the bait to draw out the entire pack, dissolved into mist and went down, not up, going low between the legs of the master vampire and coming up behind him. Sandu, Petru, Fane, Aleksi and Dragomir surrounded the master vampire and his pack. The last three ancients, all brethren from the monastery, had arrived to join in the hunt against the master vampires.

  Ferro slammed his fist straight through Ambrus’s back. Ferro was a big man and enormously strong. The blow shattered bones and drove through muscle, half turning the vampire toward him. Ambrus tried to reach him with his arms, curling back toward his opponent while all around him his servants fought for their lives against battle-experienced Carpathian hunters.

  These were not men concerned with ego or whether or not anyone noticed how many individual kills they made, or even if they fought the most difficult of the vampires. They simply sought to remove the vampire from the world. That was the sole purpose of the Carpathian hunters.

  Plants erupted beneath Ferro’s feet, long, hungry, eel-like tubes with teeth, latching on to his legs, attempting to drag him beneath the ground, wrenching at his body so hard the creatures yanked him away from Ambrus, allowing the master vampire to stagger free. Black acid coated Ferro’s arm and hand, eating at his flesh, while the hungry creatures sawed at his legs, continually trying to pull him back toward their wormhole.

  Ferro reached toward the sky with his uninjured hand and lightning responded, slamming into the creatures’ bodies right where they emerged from the hole, slicing them cleanly in two. At the same time, he bathed his injured arm in the spray of white-hot energy, cleaning the acid from it, removing the vampire’s blood to prevent it from eating its way to the bone.

  As the creatures dropped away from his legs, Ferro snapped the lightning whip at Ambrus’s head, dropping loops of sizzling-hot energy around his neck, leashing him to prevent him from shifting and getting away. With a snarl, Ambrus turned back to face him, the coils of lightning slipping around his entire body, spinning, holding him in place, exposing him as he truly was, not as he preferred to appear.

  Rotted flesh hung off skeleton bones. What seemed a fit body was no more than an illusion perfected over centuries. Ambrus might not appear to be as vain as any other vampire, but clearly he wanted to appear to the others as a mountain of a man with a muscular, battle-scarred body. That was worth noting—that Ambrus had included scarring when forging an appearance. He hadn’t made himself as the Astors had, flawless and handsome.

  Instead of the long hair of the traditional Carpathian warrior that Ambrus favored, his skull had great scaly patches of some gooey substance that oozed from inside his brain to dribble in a steady stream down his head and trickle out of holes where his ears should be. His eyes were sockets of flaming red. He had no nose, only twin sunken holes, and his mouth was filled with jagged, pointed teeth so stained with blood they appeared black.

  Elisabeta, in all the centuries Ambrus has appeared to the Malinovs, has he always appeared as you have seen him? With this image? He showed her the copy of a very fit Ambrus, trying to spare her the true rotted soul of the vampire.

  Within the coils of the lightning whip, Ambrus began to sway back and forth, murmuring to himself, his long, bony fingers tapping a rhythm on his thin, emaciated leg.

  Always.

  As the coils dropped from Ambrus, Ferro flicked his hands casually toward the vampire, surrounding him with mirrors, above him, below and completely circling him. There was nowhere the vampire looked that he didn’t see himself reflected back in his true, hideous state. He stretched his thin lips in a wide protest, screaming in horror, throwing up his arms to cover his eyes while maggots and a wealth of parasites tumbled from his mouth and throat to spew against the reflective glass.

  Ferro slammed his fist deep into the chest wall, breaking through the brittle bones without the armor of Ambrus’s woven muscle and dense bone he most likely threaded with other things to make it much more difficult for a Carpathian hunter to get to his heart. His fingers sought the withered organ, but it wasn’t where it should have been.

  He has moved it lower, to the base of his spine.

  Ferro didn’t hesitate. He withdrew his fist and slammed into him a second time, searching for the heart, fighting to get to it. Ambrus was already recovering from the momentary shock of seeing his true image after centuries of convincing himself of what he looked like. The master vampire leaned forward and bit down viciously into Ferro’s shoulder, tearing great chunks of his flesh from his body, and gulped at them, gulped at the rich, ancient blood that would give him a burst of strength.

  The vampire tried to turn his head so he could sink his teeth into Ferro’s neck and get at the jugular. Ferro continuously whirled in a circle, driving Ambrus backward into the mirrors so the glass shattered, driving the shards into the bones, keeping the master vampire from being able to shift or get his bearings. Ferro was too fast and too strong, holding off the vampire’s teeth as his fist dug for the heart against his spine.

  Ambrus retaliated, turning his hands into knifelike weapons, plunging them over and over deep into Ferro’s chest, driving straight for the Carpathian’s heart. Ferro heard Elisabeta’s gasp and cut off all contact with her immediately, stoically accepting the pain. It was a battle. Hunters expected to be wounded. They had to be close to extract the heart, and that meant the vampire would be able to rend and tear at their bodies. That was drilled into them from the time they were young boys. It was one of the reasons he didn’t want Josef hunting the undead too soon. The boy might have the courage and the knowledge, but he didn’t yet have the body to be torn into pieces and survive the experience.

  The moment Ferro had the heart in his palm he closed his fingers around it and ripped it from the master vampire’s body, turned and flung it high into the air. Lorraine!

  It would be the last thing any vampire would expect. Ambrus would try to steal the lightning from him, and he raised his hand as if wielding the whip as it blazed through the dark sky. Lorraine targeted the tiny wizened organ, impossible to see because Ferro had thrown it so high, but tied to him through their soul bond, she tracked that blackened target.

  Ambrus triumphantly reached for the sky, hands wide in an effort to snatch the lightning bolt from Ferro, but the sizzling, white-hot whip danced through the air, crackling ominously, heading with unerring accuracy right to that tiny object. Ferro dropped his hands to his sides and regarded the master vampire who shook his head in denial, unable to believe what he was seeing. The tip of the whip hit the heart, incinerating it, so that black, noxious smoke billowed up for a moment and then was cleaned in the bright hot burn of the electrical current. Ambrus stood swaying, head tilted toward the sky. He was still standing that exact way when the whip of lightning hit him and he turned to that same black ash, burning until there was nothing at all left behind.

  Something heavy hit his body, nearly knocking Ferro down, and he reacted, spinning, catching at one of Ambrus’s servants as he tried to dive into the air to get away from Petru. Ferro blocked the snarling beast of a vampire from the air by throwing his body fully in front of him. The vampire immediately attacked, raking at him with claws and snapping viciously with teeth while hurling dozens of poisonous arrows behind him in an effort to keep Sandu from approaching from that direction.

  Most of the lesser vampires were trying to follow Cornel and Dorin in their orders to retreat, taking to the air, but there were too many hunters pulling them out of the sky or tracking them on the ground. There was nowhere to hide. The few that had nearly made it into one of the clubs because a door had been opened had been immediately stopped by one of the hunters inside. The Carpathians had too many experienced warriors waiting for them, an impossibility to fight against. Retreat was the only reasonable solution, and when the vampires tried to flee, they were set upon immediately.

  Ferro managed to slide out from under the raking claws as if giving the vampire a way out, and then as the creature redoubled his speed, it impaled itself right on
Sandu’s outstretched fist.

  “Traian and Josef killed Edward Varga,” Tariq reported. “Benedek disposed of Sedrick. Petru killed Addler, and Ferro destroyed Ambrus. Cornel and Dorin Malinov managed to slip away, but that doesn’t surprise me.” He looked around him at the Carpathian warriors with various wounds as they aided one another, giving blood and helping one another to heal. “While some of us are making certain there are no traces of the vampires at the clubs and the male psychics are either free of all influences or they met with very sad accidents, we are not yet finished. Ferro says Elisabeta can call Sergey back to her. If she can do this, we can destroy five of the seven master vampires and most of their army in one decisive blow this night. Sergey is very dangerous with the knowledge he carries in his head from his brothers and the high mage. Can Elisabeta really call him to her, Ferro?”

  Ferro nodded his head decisively. “Yes, absolutely she can. He will be unable to resist answering her. He will come.” Gary was working on healing him. Three of the ancients had replenished his blood. All of them would need to be in their best shape of the night. Even better than they had been if they were going to win this next battle.

  “Call to him, Elisabeta. Bring him to you. Sergey is unable to resist your call.” They stood together, Ferro and Elisabeta, at the very edge of the meadow. Before them was a long expanse of grass and flowers. The flowers looked asleep, petals closed, while the clouds moved across the sky overhead.

  Her long lashes lifted, her dark eyes liquid with tears. She gave a small shake of her head, resisting his command for the first time. “You are injured, Ferro. He may not be the most intelligent of the Malinov brothers, but he makes up for it in both cunning and cruelty. He will smell your blood and crave it. That will spur him to greater heights of viciousness.”

  “Call to him, minan piŋe sarnanak.” He was implacable.

  “He has a sliver of all of his brothers in him. He has not one but two of Xavier, the high mage, within him. If you defeat him, the moment you extract his heart, all of those slivers will desert him and seek a host. They will scatter, tiny, very dangerous shadows impossible to track. They will find human hosts, possibly children. Each sliver is evil and will corrupt their host and lead them back to the nearest mage or vampire.”

  The plea in her voice shook him. The liquid in her eyes spilled over and tears tracked down her face. Ferro wrapped his arm around her and pulled her beneath his shoulder.

  “You should know me by now, sívamet. Would I go into battle without knowing what I face? I saved Sergey for last because I know what he holds. He cannot live. He will never stop trying to find a way to get to you. Bodies of innocent men, women and children will be nailed to the gates of the compound each rising. We cannot have that. Eventually, your kind heart will break and you will go to find him. Where is your faith in me? Your trust? More importantly, minan päläfertiilam, where is your belief in us?”

  Elisabeta’s dark eyes drifted over his face. “You look so worn, beloved.” She sighed. “If you wish to do this, then we do this.”

  He waited, letting her feel their combined strength. Their power. It rolled over the meadow, filling the air, impossible to contain. She had to feel it the way he did. It wasn’t his power alone, it was hers as well—the two of them together.

  She straightened her shoulders and nodded. “You have a plan. I know that you do. Tell me what you want me to do once he arrives.”

  She knew Sergey would come. Like Ferro, she had no doubt. Ferro smiled down at his little songbird who had finally escaped her cage and yet, with the cage door wide open, she had chosen him, chosen to stay with her centuries-old lifemate.

  “You know the plan, piŋe sarnanak, we have practiced it a thousand times.”

  Master. Elisabeta whispered the call in her mind, keeping her voice thin and fearful. Can you hear me? I have little time. He is not aware.

  At once there was a stirring. A black malevolent presence poured into Elisabeta’s mind, thick like an oil, clogging every pore. Over the centuries she had developed false walls so that the master vampire believed he could search her mind and know what she had been up to. With the exception of having access to her lifemate’s soul, he believed he controlled her completely, when she had slowly built compartment after compartment, pushing him further and further out.

  Now he saw only what Elisabeta wanted him to see. Terror. Fear of her lifemate. Of the Carpathian people. Of their demands on her. She understood nothing of their lives and they made fun of her behind her back because she didn’t know how to do anything for herself. Her lifemate was ashamed of her.

  Why do you bother me? Sergey sounded disdainful.

  Elisabeta hesitated. Retreated. The old Elisabeta would never have answered him or begged him to take her back. She would have been too terrified of the consequences of speaking to him.

  He is drawing closer, she cautioned Ferro.

  In the meadow she stood, appearing shaky, one hand half covering her face, taking several steps back into the deeper concealment of the trees, bending forward as if to peer out, looking up at the sky hopefully.

  Why would he be unaware of what you are saying to me? Sergey demanded.

  He was gone for a long time this rising. When he returned, he was wounded very badly. They called for the healer and several of the ancients to give him blood.

  Does he come alone? Ferro asked. That would be so arrogant but so like Sergey, thinking he could secret Elisabeta away once again. Cornel and Dorin wouldn’t know she was back with him and he would forever have the advantage over them.

  He has two very minor vampires with him. They are circling around the meadow to ensure that I am alone. His intention is to slay them both after he takes me back with him.

  Sergey made a show of sighing heavily. Very well, then. I will take you back, but you will be punished. Walk out into the middle of the meadow. My servants will collect you and bring you back.

  Elisabeta froze. Retreated further into her mind. Shook like the little mouse she was.

  I command you to do this. Walk out into the meadow now or I will leave you to those people. I have no time for your stubbornness.

  She didn’t move. She didn’t speak. She simply shivered, a small ball of absolute terror as only Elisabeta could be. She was so magnificent, Ferro wanted to kiss her senseless. Sergey would never leave her there. As a lure, she was absolute perfection, too scared to move. The master vampire was too close to his obsession. He needed her with every breath he drew, and there was no way he was going to allow her to slip through his fingers.

  The two servants of the undead flew toward the forest where Elisabeta had entered. She immediately shifted, just out of sight, rising to the branches, a small female owl, while a young woman in a flowing cape seemed to be running into deeper forest, away from the meadow. She was barefoot, and her dark hair tangled on brush, slowing her down so that the servants caught glimpses of her, just enough to keep them following.

  Elisabeta, stop this game at once. Come to me.

  Where are you? Her voice was very tentative. I do not want to speak to those men or have them touch me. You never allowed it. Never. How do I know it is you?

  Ferro found himself smiling. That was a good point. Sergey couldn’t dispute that. Elisabeta was very clever.

  I am waiting in the meadow, just as you asked. Hurry. Dawn is approaching and I tire of your tantrums.

  Elisabeta allowed her first real, although tentative, excitement to spill into her mind, that Sergey might really be coming for her. Deliberately the leaves rustled by the entrance and she froze. Where are those men? She let fear spill into her voice and mind all over again.

  They cannot get to you. Hurry, Elisabeta. Sergey came into view, hovering just above the ground, building safeguards to surround the entire meadow with just a small path for her to travel. They cannot enter. Only you. Step inside and I will close the safeguards behind you. Once I have you, we will leave this place. The one who claimed you will not be abl
e to follow, either.

  Sergey’s servants following the elusive shadow of Elisabeta were being tracked by Carpathian hunters. The moment Ferro gave the word, they would be taken down.

  Appearing almost small in her cape, although she was tall, like all Carpathian women, Elisabeta looked all around her before she stepped from the shadow of the forest and set foot into the meadow, allowing Sergey to weave the safeguards behind her to lock her there with him.

  He beckoned to her impatiently with one long finger. At the end was a wicked-looking nail. “Come to me now, Elisabeta.” He snapped his fingers. “We have to leave this place.”

  Ferro shifted as he approached within a few feet of Sergey. Ferro’s appearance revealed the wicked wounds from his battle with Ambrus. His clothes were torn and showed bloodstains.

  “I see she called you. She fears a new life, but she will get used to it in time.”

  “What have you done with her?” Sergey demanded.

  Elisabeta let out a small moan and presented an image of rocking herself back and forth, of being very small, curling into herself as if terrified. Ferro glided a little closer, covering the smallest of limps, one arm tight against his ribs.

  Sergey flung up his hand, weaving replicas of himself and sending them spinning in a wide circle around Ferro. The ground shifted and rolled, sending the Carpathian tumbling to his knees. Above their heads, within the safeguards, thunder roared and the swirling black clouds opened up to dump acid rain on them. Sergey moved in fast to kick at Ferro’s chin, determined to knock him on his back so he could more easily extract the heart. He also wanted as much of the Carpathian male’s body exposed to the painful acid as possible.

  Ferro caught his ankle, twisted and took him down with his enormous strength, caught the stake Sandu threw to him and slammed it straight through Sergey’s heart, pinning him to the consecrated spot in the meadow. Smoke rose as the vampire’s skin burned. He screamed horribly. Ferro waved his hand to stop the rain.