by Alana Melos
All at once, people’s colors swam into view as the pill took its full effect, allowing me use of my telepathy. I smiled then, and looked at Richter. There was a big fat ribbon of bright gold: his arrogance. Underneath it, the crimson of cruelty, and a lustrous pearly white of enjoyment. I went for his mind instead of his body. Since I hadn’t tried to mindfuck him before, my first attack--a pure pulse of telepathic power--caught him off guard and I was in! The smile slid off his slimey face and he scrambled to set a ward as I raced through his head. In his stronghold, he’d been arrogant enough not to expend the energy to ward his mind. A rookie mistake, one I’d never make. His mind was far more complex than I would have imagined, but the main emotions were simple, as they always were. He loved the Reich and power, yet there were variations and subtleties there which I couldn’t stop to appreciate or examine. He was curious about the world, and eager to learn new things. He loved fine art and the act of creation. As I passed by, looking for the core of him to rip it out, I saw his need for control, his twisted lust for his creatures, his sheer joy of changing people, twisting them to fit his and the Reich’s, needs. The depravity went further than that, and I saw that he enjoyed being a necromancer, dealing with the dead on all levels. And man, I mean… all levels.
His will rallied and I sensed him muttering something, but it was too late for him. I pressed down on his speech center and cut it off, making him forget how to form words. He moved back, turning as if to flee, but I took control of his limbs and forced him down to the ground. Now that I was here, he wasn’t going to get away. I wasn’t going to gloat; I just got down to business taking his mind apart piece by piece so he wouldn’t ever be a threat again.
Richter pushed back with considerable force. His mind was disciplined unlike some schmuck off the street. But he wasn’t a telepath, nor was mind magic his specialty. Maybe if it had been, he would have forced me out. As it was, he only delayed the inevitable. All my anger at him, my fear of Gerard, my frustration at my delayed plans, at working jobs beneath me, at being crippled, my despair at finding out I was just a copy, my annoyance and irritation at all the tension I felt between Wolf and Adira and Huraiva and Rory, and even my compassion for them and my slight guilt at leaving those people above us to die… everything I had balled up and gave me fuel to burn.
He didn’t have a chance.
I hungered after him in a way I’d only felt with Nosferatu. It wasn’t sexual--that wasn’t what I meant at all. It was primal. I needed to satiate this rage, to destroy my opponent, to shred his mind until there was nothing left. I gripped the core of him in my mental hand. An image came to me of a gaping maw, and I used it. I put his psyche in my jaws and bit down as hard as I could, savage joy filling me at defeating my enemy.
I felt/heard/saw a wet plop in my mind, like a plastic bag filled with blood exploded, spattering everything. Images and feelings and words and emotions and memories flooded into me from a thousand different places, too fast to see. It rushed into me like a tsunami crashing against the land. A mixture of every emotion under the sun filled me, all tinged red with the overarching pain of the experience. My world fell apart as I crashed to the ground, screaming, holding my head.
Nothing made sense. I couldn’t sort through these foreign imprints fast enough. I tried to raise my mental arms to command it to stop, but the gesture was only that: a gesture. A faint thought of mine hoped it would stop, that the wave would be over, flowing through me and then out of me. It didn’t stop. If anything, it filled me to completion, then continue to stuff me full of agony, an overflow of information and sights and sounds, sensations and emotions. I clawed at my head in desperation, trying to dig it out of me, or at least to give it another place to go. Blood dripped down my face as I clawed my skin open, and tore out patches of my hair.
I tried to keep it away from my core self, but in seconds, I didn’t even know who my core self was. Telepathic combat was at the speed of thought, over and done in a blink. Every second that passed in this blinding pain was an eternity. This invasion played over all of me. Every nerve burned with fire and brimstone. Waves of memories and sensations ran together in a mish mash of color and shapes until all I saw and heard and felt was a blur, crashing around me.
I’d say “mercifully, the world went black”, and it did, but it wasn’t a mercy. My mind was cut off from all parts of reality, as if my body wasn’t there at all. The agony continued. Whatever pain I’d felt before was child’s play next to this. Every part of me was assailed and violated. Sanity slipped away as I screamed and screamed. Even the rawness of my throat wasn’t something I really felt. It was just one microcosmic cog in a foreign universe.
If there was a Hell, this was it.
I felt a flash of heat. Noise clattered around me, unintelligible. Then, all at once, the impression of still came over me. After so much noise, I couldn’t comprehend the sudden silence. The pain throbbed, reverberating in my empty skull, a thousand times worse than the sensations from before. I smelled jasmine and caught the impression of two gaping eye holes, and then, finally, I knew no more.
Chapter Twelve
I wasn’t expecting to wake, because I hadn’t had any conscious thoughts before blacking out. However, if I had been in my right mind at the time, I really wouldn’t have expected to wake in posh luxury. Comfort surrounded me in every sense of the word. The light was pleasant to my eyes, not too dark nor too bright. The air smelled of vanilla with a hint of a floral scent I couldn’t quite identify. The bed I lay in surrounded me with airy comfort, as if I lay on a cloud. The walls were a light pink, colored like the inside of a conch shell. The furniture looked old, but well maintained. The paintings upon the walls, scattered here and there to break up the plain panels, were very old, done by masters. I didn’t know much art, but even a layman like me could tell that at a glance.
Gentle, cool fingers smoothed my hair, combing it gently. Though the touch was pleasant, it startled me and I sat up. As the covers fell away, I saw I wore a silken night dress with thin straps, light blue in color. When I turned, I saw Adira sitting at the headboard of the bed, dressed in new clothing which was more to her taste. Her shirt was loose and white, and she had a silk floral wrap loosely around her hair, barely containing the wild waves. She looked pleased.
“I was worried,” she said in English, her voice calm and cool. Her dull red eyes and cool skin told me it was Adira, not Huraiva, even though the sun shone. I’d lost at least a half a day. Likely, I’d lost much more than that.
“Where are we?” I asked as I turned, looking around the room. There was a wide window, one of those floor to ceiling deals which looked as if it opened up onto a balcony. Gauzy white curtains covered it, preventing the sunlight from falling too far into the room, though the bed was well away from where any beams lay.
“Italy,” she replied. “Venice to be precise.”
“That’s… how… what happened?” I stretched my mind back to the confrontation between us and Richter, but my mind shied away from it, not wanting to remember the confusion and agony. I put a hand to my temple, realizing I felt no pain.
“When you and the oberst collapsed, our opponents looked away, just for a moment,” Adira said as she folded her hands in her lap. “I leaped on the man and drank from him.” For a moment, the red in her eyes flared, causing me to blink in surprise. “He was full of power. Once I drank, I had him. I was not able to get close enough without the distraction. He was too fast. Too strong. I drained him dry.” She paused, “Once Lucius--”
“Who’s Lucius?” I interrupted.
“The vampire we fought,” she said, glancing away. A slight wince crossed her features, then she looked back to me, her gaze steady. “The one who had been modified. He had been one of the ones missing from Prime.”
I nodded slowly. Richter had been kidnapping and changing them, then. The missing pack members had been a mystery I hadn’t had time to get to the bottom of and, after they kicked out Rory and Adira, hadn’t cared t
o. “Go on.”
“Once Lucius saw the other defeated, he disappeared after defeating the Siren,” she continued. “I let him.” She unlaced her hands to touch her jaw, “They hit very hard, but the blood healed.” With a sigh, the vampire lowered her hand again and shifted her legs to get more comfortable. “You kept screaming, and I feared you would bring the other security down on us, so once I was able to wake the Siren, we escaped and blew up the lab.” She paused, looking somewhere between proud and abashed. “The tower was destroyed completely. The laboratory was filled with many volatile chemicals. They helped the explosion grow greater than it was.”
“Completely decimated?” I laughed, and the laugh felt good. She nodded with a slight smile. “I wish I could have seen that.”
“It was impressive,” she said. “We were able to sneak away easily, after muffling you. I didn’t want to, but you made too much noise, at least until you screamed yourself silent.”
That made me pause. Adira leaned forward, studying me with the intensity of a schoolboy examining a bug. “That doesn’t explain how we ended up here,” I said, diverting her silent question. “I know we planned on Italy, but you were afraid they wouldn’t let you in.”
She leaned back, then got off the bed. Even though the light coming through the windows was indirect, she avoided it anyway. “We stole a car and drove,” she continued. “There are not many vehicles out at night and since she and I can both see into darkness, we drove without headlights, avoiding anyone coming our way. It wasn’t hard, merely tedious.
“At the border, we explained that though we were from the Reich, we had defected to another dimension, and showed you as proof,” she said as she wandered the room. I studied her body language and tried to figure out what she was telling me without telling me. The nonchalant nature of her wandering made me think she hid something. “They finally relented, under conditions. A doctor was called, but whatever happened to you was out of his field of knowledge. They called in a mind specialist.”
“Like a therapist?” I asked, wrinkling my nose up in skepticism. “Or a brain doctor?” Wasn’t there a specific term for that? If there was, I couldn’t think of it.
She shook her head. “No, a magician,” the vampiress said. “Since you were connected to Richter, the doctor surmised it may have mystical causes. They did what they did, and here we are.”
Feeling less than pleased, I sighed. She hadn’t mentioned anything about the Clarity, and likely didn’t want to upset me by scolding me. Oh-fucking-well. I opened my mouth to tell her as much when the door burst open. A tall black woman with her hair swept back in a multitude of thin braids entered. Her dress was colored an eye-blinding yellow, hung off of one shoulder, and the mid-length hem of it swished around her powerful legs as she strode in. She looked so much like a fashion model from Africa on Prime that when she opened her mouth, I found myself shocked at her voice.
“Buongiorno!” she exclaimed, her voice exuberant. She continued in German, heavily accented with Italian, which hurt my brain trying to translate it. “I see you’ve awakened! Come and let me have a look at you!”
Without warning, she gripped me by my shoulders and turned my body this way and that like a mother might do to a child. Her grip was strong. Her umber skin radiated health. “What are you--” I began, but she cut me off.
“Bene!” she exclaimed. “You’ve healed well! We are pleased at this!”
“Who’s we?” I asked as I leaned back, trying to get away from her intrusiveness. I glanced around; my weapon wasn’t anywhere nearby.
“The stregoni, the ah, healers,” she said as she let go. “I had feared the worst!” She backed up and made a throwing away gesture with both hands. “After seeing your mind? Pah! We thought you were broken forever. You proved us wrong!”
The stranger seemed ecstatic that I had. I was certainly happy to hear it. “Thank you, Kiandra,” Adira said as she stepped to the end of the bed and regarded the both of us. “We are in your debt.”
“No debt is owed,” Kiandra said, her wide smile flashing as she waved away Adira’s statement. “Debt? What is debt? There is no debt!”
“Thank you,” I echoed. “I feel fantastic.”
“You had many other injuries, we fixed them all,” she said. “Just heal the mind? Pah! No, we heal the body, the s--” She started, then bit off her words. The healer’s smile faltered for just a moment. “We heal everything we could. It is nothing!”
I couldn’t help but to hide a smirk. She’d been about to say ‘soul’. “It’s appreciated,” I told her and went to stand.
“Oh, come, come, get dressed,” she urged. “We have breakfast! Come and eat, get your strength up!” She smiled broadly at the two of us, “We’ll see you there!” With that, she breezed out of the room, like the yellow wind.
“That was my healer?” I asked Adira as I stood up. I tested my legs first, just to make sure I wasn’t weak kneed from a lack of food. Who knows how long it’d been since I ate?
“Yes,” Adira nodded. She gestured to the closet. “Your clothes, and others, are there.”
I walked over and opened the doors to find a walk in closet filled to the brim with clothing of all types. “They don’t skimp here, do they?” I murmured as I walked in a few paces to find my leather trench, complete with o-wakizashi inside. I was happy to find that it was in pristine condition. They must have cleaned and repaired it.
“The Caesar treats his people well, I’ve always heard,” she replied with a disdainful sniff. “But they are weak and inferior, embracing the different races instead of cleansing them.”
“You’d think people would realize there’s no different races by now. It’s all just people,” I said, shaking my head. I chose a simple outfit: a white blouse which wrapped around my torso instead of buttoning up the front, and dark brown slacks. The clothes I’d come here in had been cleaned, but I’d spent too much time in them. I checked all the pockets of my trench before snagging it from the hook. With the blade in its sheath, I couldn’t really throw it over my arm and look inconspicuous, so I put it on even though it was a warm day.
“All of you humans are inferior to vampires,” Adira said. When I glanced up, she raised a brow and smirked.
I smiled in return. She didn’t joke often, so she must have felt comfortable. “Living forever isn’t exactly on my list of goals,” I said as I stepped out to check myself in a mirror and checked my pockets once again. I had my mask and my blade, as well as the drugs and other things I’d picked up, so I felt ready to take on the world.
“What is on your list, then?” she asked, a faint lilt to her voice indicating her curiosity.
“Leaving a legacy,” I replied. “If you’re ready, let’s go meet the rest of our hosts.”
“I’ve already met them,” she said. “They were very nice, and very loud, and they want something.”
“People always do,” I said as I opened the door. “Nothing’s ever free.”
We exited. Huraiva took over Adira’s body and fell into step beside me, showing me the way to the common area of this wing of the palace we were staying in. The large mansion spread out over what seemed to be half of Venice in all of its opulent glory. While nice and expensive, it just wasn’t my style. As the Reich was nice, if old-fashioned, with a dirty secret underneath, the Empire didn’t bother to hide any of its indulgences. Everything was the best. Everyone had the best. I wondered what their mindset was as I frowned at people we passed in the large hallway. I wondered if they were happy, or if there was another secret here waiting just under the surface like in the Reich. When I reached out with my telepathy, I was pleased to find that it was more than the mere whispers of emotions I’d felt before. I could brush up against individual thoughts now, reading them. They’d done a bang up job fixing my head. And yes, they were happy for the most part. A thread of worry wound through thoughts, dancing back and forth, but I couldn’t press hard enough to discern the cause.
Huraiva led me to a di
ning room with a long table meant to seat twelve. We were the first to arrive for breakfast, so I took a seat at the head. Huraiva sat down to my right. “You think we’re too late? She said they had breakfast.”
“No,” she said. “They have an odd sense of time here. There’s no set time for anything. People eat when they want, work when they want, do whatever when they want.” The inflection in her voice told me she didn’t agree with that, though I basically did the same thing. Jobs made me come and go at all hours, but I was only one person. A whole society just breezing by? That was pretty bizarre. Someone had to keep to a schedule, else they’d never get anything done.
A door opposite the one we entered open, and I blinked at the darkly handsome and familiar face which came through. “Alistair?” I asked as I stood up.
He gave me a ghost of a smile as he entered, followed by Rebekah. Her pleasant smile had been replaced with a scowl. The heavy black glove on her new right hand appeared out of place with the white sundress she wore. When she saw me, her frown broke and she beamed, if only for an instant.
“Oh good!” she said as she skipped over to me. She gave me a hug, which I leaned away from. “I was so worried!”
“About me? I’ll be fine,” I said as I patted her on the back then pushed her away. I still didn’t like people too close to me, even if I trusted them. Except when I was fucking them, of course. Kind of unavoidable then. “What about you? What’s with the hand?”
At that, her scowl reappeared and she plopped her small butt down in the left hand seat. Alistair took the chair on her free side. “This? I’m getting it removed when I can.”
“What is it? What did he do to you?” I hesitated in asking ‘Was it from a dead guy?’ but I was dying to know if that’s what happened.