Immortal Sleepers_Blood Awakening

by Miranda Nichols

  A heavy palm came to rest over her unblinking eyes, suddenly obscuring her vision. She was pulled back against someone’s chest. She could still hear what was happening around her, but her brain only sluggishly processed the sounds into words. She finally came to recognize and string the words together into sentences, but now struggled to make sense of their meaning.

  The Druid said, “Anyone else who attempts to help you escape will meet the same fate. I think I’ll put this on display. I’m sure the ’On family will find it enlightening.”

  A pulling sensation encompassed Kaelyn briefly, before quickly disappearing. The hand over her eyes slowly lifted, and the presence behind her stepped away. She registered her surroundings as her glass prison. The monster had brought her back.

  Caleb stepped around in front of her, obscuring the familiar setting once more. Remorse filled his tortured, beautiful eyes to the brim.

  Kaelyn parted her lips to ask Caleb what he had to be sorry for. Then reality came crashing down around her. Horror drenched her as her mind finally finished processing the events of the past few minutes, and a horrible despair welled up within her. She fell into the corner, and spilled the contents of her stomach out across the black glass surface. Caleb’s hand on her back held no comfort for her.

  This was someone else’s life, not hers. She had witnessed some horribly twisted perversion of someone’s imagination, not her own life playing out before her. It couldn’t be real. Her entire body quaked with the force of her inner turmoil. She had brought this on herself, and everyone else she’d come into contact with. Cynric had irrevocably changed Caleb into the very monster he’d spent his young life training to destroy. Her father had come into her life mere moments before the Druid abruptly took him from it. Tyrian had sacrificed everything he believed in to rescue the boy he considered a son. She was toxic, a poison on the existence of everyone around her.

  Kaelyn’s head snapped to the side, the sharp, exploding pain in her jaw drawing her abruptly out of her self-pitying train of thought. Shaking his hand out, Caleb pleaded, “Tyrian, forgive me.”

  Glancing at him incredulously, Kaelyn shot back, “Why the hell are you worried about Tyrian? I’m the one you just slapped in the face! You do understand that you’re locked in a room with me, don’t you?”

  Caleb took a deep breath, then exhaled a heavy sigh of relief. “Anger I can handle. Not so good with grief.”

  Kaelyn swallowed heavily and sat back against the wall, clutching her jaw. After considering Caleb’s situation, she made the decision to get them both through this horrible experience. Immediately, she threw up walls against the mental freakout she’d just succumbed to. She would have plenty of time to come to terms with her grief after their rescue. Then, she could deal with it away from others.

  “Thank you,” she whispered, not looking the boy in the eye.

  “Don’t mention it,” Caleb replied, the double meaning behind his words settling between them heavily.

  Kaelyn drew in upon herself, and for the first time since arriving in this deplorable realm, she prayed for Tyrian to find her quickly.

  Chapter 16

  Tyrian gazed solemnly out across the barren sand landscape, to the entrance of the mine. Deq’on’s head, callously spiked in the entryway, was a clear message from the Druid monster that the time for shadow games had ended. The Vampire Hunter considered this just as well. He had grown well past ready for this extended rescue mission to end. He’d felt an ever-growing sense of urgency to return to Kaelyn’s side, ever since learning of her relation to the Vampire family he’d found himself allied with.

  “I’m sorry,” he offered under his breath to the weathered Vampire at his side.

  The elder male sighed heavily, his saddened yet resigned gaze never leaving the stark visage of his decapitated brother. He appeared to draw some sort of avenging strength from the sight. The longer he stared, the more his form seemed to grow: muscles tightening, jaw clenching, his gaze turned to stone. Suddenly, Tyrian no longer stood next to the overly forthright elder Vampire who always seemed to think he knew best under any circumstances. Now, he stood beside the leader of the Vampire race: tall and proud, his presence carrying a menacing weight that nearly matched the Hunter’s own. Under less dire circumstances, the change might have impressed him.

  “I expected this,” El’on admitted gravely. “Deq had gone too far beyond reason. But his sacrifice will not be in vain. We will see this monster removed from our realm, or we will die trying.”

  Tyrian turned his back to the mouth of the caves, and took in the sight behind them in muted awe. The entire Vampire army had assembled at their rear flank. Hundreds of thousands of warriors, as far as the eye could see, had gathered there in response to the Druid’s open invitation to war. He drank in the sight of them standing shoulder to shoulder before him, a sight that before this day would have meant his certain end. This time, however, they had not come for him. They all shared a common enemy now, and each Vampire out there was there to claim one thing: their freedom.

  “Are you sure about this?” Tyrian glanced from the Vampire horde to their leader at his side.

  The elder Vampire idly rolled his head to the side, and shot the Hunter a grim smirk. With a short nod, he responded, “Hurry and find your friend. We will be here when you return.”

  As the last words left his mouth, El’on swiftly pulled his sword from its sheath, prompting a flurry of motion from the assembly. The Vampire soldiers armed themselves in response to their leader. Imposing forms balanced on a razor’s edge, they waited eagerly for the chance to sink their fangs into their prey.

  Tyrian turned, and drew fully on the well of strength within him. In a flash, he stood before the entrance of the mines. He lowered his head, his powerful form clenched tightly from head to toe. Dark locks hung in front of his emerald eyes as he slowly shifted them to his left, to light upon the spike displaying Deq’on’s head. He wrapped one clawed hand around the base of the glass pole, gripped the crown of the Vampire’s skull with the other, and violently ripped the two apart.

  With a flick of his wrist, Tyrian launched the head of Deq’on nearly five hundred yards behind him. He didn’t need to turn to know that El’on caught the head. Breathing out heavily through his nose, he curled his lips back from his teeth, and clenched his fist around the glass spear he still gripped. He knew exactly where to put it. The Druid bastard would regret choosing his Page as a subject for his foul experiments; he would see to that personally.

  That thought firmly in mind, the Hunter raced into the darkness of the mine.

  * * * *

  Snow-white lashes parted to reveal bottomless black pools of emptiness. Their once iridescent luster had darkened to the point where their owner no longer recognized them. Cynric never saw himself anymore when he stared at his reflection; he seriously doubted that he ever would again.

  He turned his head languidly toward the entrance to the mines. He now stood in the exact spot where he had foreseen his confrontation with the Vampire Hunter. He had come there as soon as he noticed the large gathering of Vampires outside his front door.

  It appeared as though his invitation had been graciously accepted.

  He stood calmly, hands held loosely behind his back, waiting, watching through his hollow eyes. The form of the Vampire Hunter appeared around the corner; then his large frame stopped short as his glowing green eyes lit upon Cynric’s monochromatic form.

  The Druid curled his pale lips up at the sides, in mimicry of a smile of greeting. “Hello, Hunter,” his hauntingly empty voice sounded in welcome.

  The Hunter did not relax. If anything he tightened, clenching his fists at his sides, as he sneered in response, “So you’re the Druid I’ve heard so much about.”

  Cynric knew the man itched to raise the spear he’d acquired from Deq’on’s head, and run it through his eye socket. He would not dare make the move, though. Having seen everything Starla was capable of over the years, his wariness of t
he unknown extent of Cynric’s abilities would temper the violent vampiric instincts vibrating just below the surface. She had trained the Hunters quite well, it appeared.

  “You should go,” Cynric cautioned, “unless you would like to end up like my friend Deq’on, there.”

  The Hunter narrowed his shining, emerald gaze, and tightened his grip on the glass spear in his hand. “That’s how you treat your friends?” he grated through clenched teeth.

  Cynric found it almost akin to watching a physical battle, seeing the human Hunter fight to keep his rage in check. He knew nothing of the Sleepers Starla had contracted into the service of her Hunters, but clearly this one commanded incredible power, to hold such a firm grip on its host’s body. The two of them seemed to have this in common.

  “When they betray me, yes,” Cynric answered bluntly. Beating around the bush would only prolong the inevitable. The Hunter could not possibly match him in power or ability; he would not pretend otherwise. The Hunter would meet the same end as the previous occupant of the spike held so tightly in his grasp.

  “You’re more twisted than I thought,” Tyrian growled, shoulders rising and falling heavily with every breath.

  Cynric’s smirk abruptly faltered at those words. “I am exactly as twisted as you thought,” he responded, his tone clipped. “Let’s not mince words. You’ve come here for Caleb. I’m not inclined to give him to you. But I don’t think you will leave without him, and so we come to an impasse. One that unfortunately ends with me killing you.”

  Cynric never threatened, but simply informed. He never said or did anything without meaning, and always swiftly followed any indication that he would end someone’s life by that very action. Which was why he was greatly discouraged when his words were countered suddenly by the flash of white light heralding the arrival of Starla, the only other living Druid within the thirteen realms.

  “You will not raise so much as a finger against my Hunter, Cynric,” she immediately addressed him. “I might have known.”

  Cynric’s coal-black eyes drifted over Starla’s pure white form. She remained exactly as he remembered her, disgustingly pristine. He’d heard the quippy human phrase once before, that the eyes were the windows to the soul. The saying held more truth for their own race than any other. Pitch black met iridescent white in the dim glow of molten rivers passing continuously behind the black glass walls. He responded involuntarily to her presence: resentment spread like a black poison through his veins, drawing his facial expression into a contemptuous frown.

  “Starla—” the Hunter began, but she held up a small, white hand. Tearing her infuriatingly crystalline gaze from his, she turned her head to address the man. Cynric couldn’t help the sudden feeling of relief at the absence of her heavy gaze.

  “Go, find Caleb and Kaelyn. I’ll handle this,” she ordered. Then she turned her eyes back to Cynric. The momentary lapse had given him a sorely needed opportunity to compose himself, and he greeted her gaze this time with a cold indifference. He would not let her get to him; his mission was too important to falter now, at the simple sight of the pristine Druid priestess.

  The Hunter, apparently, had not known of his Medium’s exploits, as he turned a stunned gaze to his leader. “Kaelyn? She’s here? Since when?”

  Sighing softly, Starla never broke Cynric’s gaze as she answered the Hunter. “She opened a portal and slipped through before I could stop her. She’s with Caleb; they’re both safe for now. Go to them.”

  He could tell that the man wanted to protest, but he wisely held his tongue. Sparing one last scornful glare in his direction, the Hunter slammed the blood-coated spear into the ground at his side. Then he took two steps backward, before turning on his heel and heading off toward the prison holding his Page and his Medium.

  * * * *

  Starla watched the man she had once considered a brother relax suddenly under her scrutiny. When she’d first appeared to him, he’d seemed disgruntled, perhaps angry. Now, though, he appeared calm, detached. His empty black irises confirmed what she already knew, and mourned for.

  He’d accepted a dark taint within himself, coloring his immaculate Druid soul in the darkest hue imaginable. She no longer knew this Druid, as she’d known Cynric many millennia before. This dark monstrosity was a sordid stain on his prestigious heritage, the kind of which she feared he would never be rid of.

  “You appear less surprised than I expected,” he iterated. He spoke in a disjointed voice, cloaked in wrongness. It grated on Starla like nails on a chalkboard, and she winced, blinking away the sensation.

  After composing herself, she raised her chin and set her lips in a grim line. “I went to see the elders,” she plainly answered.

  A sneer marred Cynric’s ageless features. “How are the old windbags?” he asked, no emotional inflection in his warped tone.

  Starla shook her head softly. She hadn’t wanted to believe it when they’d told her. But now, faced with the glaring evidence of his horrible betrayal, she could no longer ignore the obvious. “You have no idea what you have done, Cynric,” she breathed, her voice barely above a whisper. She couldn’t help but feel sorry for him, overwhelmed by a deep sadness at the very sight of his twisted black gaze.

  “I know exactly what I’m doing, Starla. Do you?” he countered, cocking his head to the side to regard her.

  She took a measured step forward, throwing one hand out to the side and pinning the mutated Druid with a furious glare. “The others were locked away for a reason. What you have planned will be the end of everything!” she exclaimed. The walls around them seemed to warp slightly with the force of her ire. She had to make this point clear to him. The path he had started down could only end in apocalyptic death and destruction.

  “Your everything!” A dark animosity poured out from Cynric, and filled the space between them with a debilitating, heavy atmosphere. “My everything was taken from me long ago.”

  Starla backed down from the rampant hostility he shot at her, then drew in on herself at the reminder of his horribly tragic past. “Your own doing,” she countered softly.

  The black atmosphere that choked the air around them faded away, and Cynric seemed to calm. He fell back into his previous attitude of cold indifference. “The inevitable end to a series of unfortunate events,” he responded candidly, as if the reminder of his own misfortunes was nothing more than an afterthought.

  “Is that all this is to you?” Starla hugged her arms around her middle tightly, and shook her head at the man. “A means to an end?”

  “The only end that matters,” Cynric flatly replied. He couldn’t want this, not on his own. Something else, something dark, had to have him under its influence, some malevolent presence forcing him into this role as executioner.

  Starla looked upon the other Druid for the first time with truly open eyes, and nearly blanched. A heavy, dark presence did indeed hover menacingly around her old friend. The inky blackness wove itself in and around his soul, intertwined in a way she’d only ever seen with her Hunters and their Sleepers.

  Cynric had done exactly that. He’d formed a Sleeper contract.

  With a Dark One.

  “What did it offer you, Cynric? Whatever it was is not worth this!” She used the full measure of her magic to project her voice past the lurking presence surrounding him, through to the Druid inside. Unfortunately, her trip to the higher realm had substantially drained her. She’d had to rely on the beacon of Tyrian’s presence to even find her way there. She barely had enough strength left to support herself.

  “Your pleas fall on deaf ears, I’m afraid, priestess,” Cynric stonily replied. “I am simply following the path fate has laid before me.”

  Starla closed her inner eye, blocking out the vision of the vile affront to her Druid heritage, and opted instead to conserve her energy. She could certainly not take on a Dark One in her current state, and she silently prayed that he would not push her into a battle.

  “As if our destinies are ever tha
t easy,” she countered. “You always have a choice, Cynric. Give me the key.”

  If he felt surprise that she knew about the artifact, he didn’t show it. He lifted his shoulders in a loose shrug, and stoically raised one thin, white eyebrow. “I don’t have it.”

  “Don’t do this,” Starla pleaded in a last-ditch effort. She knew what she would have to do if he didn’t give up on this course. She’d have to take matters into her own hands, something she’d avoided all the years of her long life very carefully.

  “Afraid to get your hands dirty?” Cynric taunted.

  “I will destroy you,” she whispered, slumping her shoulders in defeat.

  A portal suddenly manifested behind Cynric, drawing the twisted Druid into its swirling depths. “You will try.” His mutated tone drifted past the vortex in the form of an ignominious promise.

  * * * *

  The restless form of the Vampire Medium moved steadily back and forth across the dark glass floor in thick, black rubber-soled boots. Kaelyn took her turn now to trace the perimeter of the room, her hazel eyes distant and unfocused. Caleb lounged on the cot, staring drolly up at the ceiling.

  Kaelyn felt something humming to life inside of her. Her blood rushed through her veins, right beneath her suddenly too-sensitive skin, making her distinctly aware of the stiflingly warm air in the room. The heat from the lava flows seeped through the stone caverns, penetrating the glass surrounding them, and turning the space into a sweltering oven. She was certain she hadn’t noticed that an hour earlier.

  Tugging deftly at the collar of her tank top, Kaelyn swallowed and stared anxiously around at the suddenly smaller space. Her sharpened vision drew every detail of the room into startling clarity, and she saw every square inch of it in vivid technicolor.