When we got to the ornately-decorated movie theatre, Peggy knew the way inside. My confidence in her was not misplaced.
Shadows fell as soon as the streetlight beams waned.
As the sun rose over the eastern Hollywood Hills, the sky turned pink and orange. Only a few precious minutes remained to reach shelter or die.
With some luck, my reborns had escaped the wicked blades of the Hunters once again. I couldn’t help feeling some measure of accomplishment. Pride. I’ll admit it. The bravery of my newly- formed army against the traps of the merciless Mars Alatorian hunters had been something to behold.
Those bastard hunters knew every trick in the book to kill a reborn. And they used those weapons with no mercy, no sense of justice.
Witness the silver in my chest.
That was a parting gift from them just for rescuing my daughter, Peggy from their mortal, shortsighted clutches.
They didn’t even know what she was.
I’m no fool. I wasn’t going to tell my mortal enemies what wisdom looked like. They had stolen Peggy four days ago. That’s when those same shallow, ignorant men had crept into my home and killed every vampire I had raised to the blood for two hundred years. Every. Single. Ally. I. Had. Left. More thorough than a whorehouse proctologist, the brazen hunters left no moving thing, living or reborn, in my nest.
Except me. And that was only because Dracula always taught me the value of hidden rooms and dummy vaults. Tonight, with my army of newborns, I made sure the killers paid for their oversight.
And paid.
Best believe, I wasn’t finished yet.
First, I just had to survive the infernal silver burning in my ribcage.
“Hold on, Celestine,” Tristan whispered into the hair clumped by my neck. “We are close. Do you hear me? Close. I got you, woman. Listen to me.”
Even when he ran, Tristan’s voice was low and sweet as honey. In the middle of a pitched battle, he still managed to reach me. Through the blood and the pain that held me in its thrall, I breathed in his scent. Cologne, soap, and the sweat of a fighter: intoxicating. He smelled so good.
So. Damn. Tasty. An entire snack, that one.
Hunger filled my mouth with venom as my instincts kicked in.
More importantly, his blood would help me heal. Hot from the fight, coursing with adrenaline and testosterone, every inch of the man was vampire candy. Better still, he wouldn’t even know what happened. My fangs would strike with the venom of a fleur de lance and the speed of a scorpion.
He wouldn’t feel a thing.
Blood. The hunger for hot, fresh blood screamed in my empty veins as the wound caused precious drops to fall. I emptied of stolen human warmth as he held me, running for the crypt that held my last hope.
To begin to heal, all I had to do was take him.
My fangs would not answer my own need. I desperately hungered for more than the heat of his arms around my frail and ruined body. But every instinct of my undead body was denied by Tristan’s blue eyes. I could not take him.
I just couldn’t.
Even if I died for that choice, Tristan would live. God knows, he’d done enough.
Peggy was the price he paid already. That and at least five of his dojo’s students fallen.
He’ll never forgive me. Not for that.
I must have blacked out.
The next thing I felt was the cold grip of smoothly carved and polished marble on my back as they set me in the crypt. The bone cold chill of frozen earth, immovable as mountains, radiated through my skin, icing over the last drops of human heat, freezing me in stasis.
“Get the chain of Icarus,” I whispered, each word mumbled through blue lips, “From the labyrinth of Zoser.” I looked at Peggy, standing behind Tristan. Remember. Remember the story. I willed her to hear me as the cold earth pulled my mind into its icy embrace. I became the stone. And stone I would stay, until they succeeded.
Or the end of time... whichever came first.
2
Waking
Tristan St. Denis
Blood covered my hands and shirt. Her blood.
I didn't know what to do.
This woman, she turned my whole life around. Yeah, women can do that. Wasn’t the first time for me, either.
In the three years since Marian died, it had taken everything I had just to keep the Palisades dojo open. Heart and soul, I dedicated the energy of my mind and body to raising those kids, teaching them the ways of the tiger and dragon, leading them to discover their own bodies and their own wills, all the while trying to heal. Most days, I could barely even breathe. Most days, I survived by teaching.
Then, when the lessons ended, I drew a blank.
Frankly, I didn’t want to live. Thoughts of Marian swirled around my head in a downpour of constant sorrow. I missed her so incredibly much. Even the good memories hurt. Whispers of our ten years of life together filled every living moment. Until the cancer took her, she was my northern star. I gave her my heart when I was nineteen years old. For a decade, she kept it full to bursting with joy.
That's all I remembered.
Every day when the dojo students filed out the glass doors, her ghost walked beside me, both a gift and a curse. She was always there, so I never felt lonely. But she was always there, so I never reached out, not really.
Each day was the same for me: Open the dojo. Teach. Lock up.
I didn’t remember much else—not the walk home, not what I ate for dinner. Frankly, I lived for those eager students, for that dojo. It was all I could do to survive—an empty husk of myself—every day of the last three years. Memories of her kept me sane but drove me into a depression so deep, I could barely breathe.
I knew something had to change but I never could figure out what. Routine made existing without Marian easier so I clung to that. Planning out every day, planning out each hour meant that my life was filled. The days went by, marching on in an orderly fashion. I clung to the past and to our wedding ring, which hung loosely on my finger. Along with the gold necklace my father left me, those were the only solid things that kept me tethered to this world.
I was miserable. Stuck.
I kept looking at the full bottle of pain-relieving pills she left behind.
Rolling the brown plastic cylinder in my palm, listening to the clack and clatter of the certain death held inside those bits of chalky, white circles. Most days, I found the strength to put the bottle down. Most days. Yesterday, I twisted open the lid and stared at the messengers of final, oblivious sleep. I set the opened prescription bottle next to my bed, certain I would empty the container when I got home.
Time dragged on and on. Class ended. I locked up for the last time, each action bittersweet.
And then...
And then, she came walking towards me down the street. Just her footsteps on the wet sidewalk struck my heart with the jolt of a hammer against a finely-stretched drum skin. She was like nothing I had ever seen.
Ever.
Each step she took towards me felt like a dance only she knew. A fine lady from another world, from a time before the jangle of modern electronics and the harsh LED lights of the city, the ethereal creature was light on her feet. The whole time she walked towards me, her eyes never left mine.
Standing outside in the rain, I had just locked up the dojo. My mind was already sinking into the oblivion of pattern and the comfort of habit.
And then, there she was—the end to everything I ever knew.
All of a sudden, this startlingly beautiful creature asked for my help. With a darkness in her eyes that swallowed my grief, the exquisite woman begged me.
Me.
Her eyes enthralled my broken heart. Help.
She needed me. After three years of spiraling downward every day, I could do something. Suddenly, I had a purpose: to keep her safe. Some assholes had kidnapped her daughter.
I seized at the chance for my life to mean something. Hell yeah, I was up for that fight. Didn’t have to ask
twice. Worse kind of inhuman bastards… anyone who would hurt a child.
How could a man do anything less?
And the whole time I was with her, my head kept spinning. From the moment she said hello, Celestine DeBrenton turned my world upside down.
I needed that.
Now, less than two days later: I needed her.
In a way so very different than Marian’s ghost, Celestine gave me something to live for. Even now, holding her bloody body, I still felt like my life was a series of sleepwalking moments. Impossible things built on imagined creatures, driven by a fury so deep it would have stolen every drop of water from the ocean, just to fill Celestine’s sorrow. No one would believe the things I had seen in the last two days.
I certainly didn’t.
Gently, I laid her body on the polished gray stone. She looked so tiny, so lost as the life blood dripped out of the blast hole in her side. She died, right in front of me, just like Marian. Only it wasn't cancer—not this time.
This time, it was magic.
I know. I wouldn’t have believed it two days ago, either.
“Thank you,” the weeping girl said behind me, “thank you for your help. My mother... she would be most grateful for all you have done.” Peggy’s soft words didn't help the situation. Tears didn’t save anything or anyone. God knows, I cried enough to bring back the dead. What good did that do?
Words wouldn't fix the stunning woman that lay there, as cold as the Earth.
Abruptly, something in me snapped. “Damn it to hell and back. No,” I swore at the intricately carved ceiling, at the exquisite flowers and angels that draped her open coffin.
Screw that. “It can’t end like this. It can’t.”
Death wasn't beautiful. Death wasn't a friend to be welcomed. There was no damn good reason for a woman that fine to die.
What a waste.
“She’s dead.” I spoke the simple truth like a fool. Obviously.
“No, she’s not.” Shaking her head, Peggy corrected my assumption, “More like a coma than anything. She is still here. That’s all willpower.”
Not dead. Not dead. Not dead. Those words felt like a song beating in time with my heart.
Women.
“What can we do?” I asked, demanding action when nothing seemed to be possible. “Can we fix her? She said we needed a chain. You ever heard of this-this Labyrinth?”
Peggy wiped her eyes and nodded.
“Okay. Alright. That’s a start. What's the chain of Icarus? Do you know?”
The pale girl’s eyes flutter wide. She hesitated for a moment before she answered.
“I remember that there are items hidden somewhere here. My mother spoke of a chain once,” Carefully, Peggy recalled scant bits of information.
“Anything else?” I asked impatiently. I couldn’t take my eyes off of the fragile, still body. Celestine was as pale as the marble now, stone on stone.
Peggy bit her lip, uncertain. She too had to decide who to trust.
Finally, she continued, “She sometimes spoke of myths and legends. There was a chain held by the guardian of Dreams, Slumberos. Only one deity ever knew where the chain was, the sneakiest of gods, lingering in the corners, avoiding all the hard work: Bastet.”
“Bastet?” I asked confused. Gods and goddesses, magic and mayhem, all of this was far outside of anything I understood. Everything I knew about the learning of the Asian martial forms of fighting, swords, hands, defense—the art of protection. “Now, who the hell is Bastet?” I demanded, frustrated. “We need that chain. We need it now. How do we find this Bastet?”
“She’s around, lurking in the shadows between here and Hades. Cats always are,” Peggy muttered, staring down the hallway into the dark. “We can find out more in the library… there’s a book. Ancient people called it the Book of the Dead. I’ve seen it twice. Old things makes me sneeze—too much dust. Anyway, Mother said it held a collection of ancient spells, both darkness and light. I only ever tried two of them. That was enough for me. But that’s the place I’d start.”
Right. We had to go.
First though, I took a moment. Looking down at the wounded body that lay like an autumn leaf across the polished stone, Celestine still mesmerized me.
It was a bitter parting all around. I could taste the sourness of desperation on my lips.
If we failed, this would be the last time I saw her. Frankly, I couldn’t bear that loss.
Celestine had to survive. “Live, damn it. You have to,” I muttered. I’d never met anyone like her. Once in a lifetime, that’s how rare she was.
Now I didn’t want to leave her side.
“Only knew you for a few days. Too few, I say. All the same, you changed me.” I whispered to the stone. She couldn’t hear my clipped words. She lay in her crypt wounded, dying.
But I knew one thing: she wasn't dead. Not yet.
Simple fact I'd learned in the last day: when a vampire dies, it explodes into a pile of ash and dust thick enough to clog your lungs, and dense enough to kill a man who stood too close.
So Celestine wasn't dead.
But whatever magic held her life, the blood spell that connected her spirit to her vampiric body, that force was damaged.
Turning away from the sight of Celestine’s still body, I spoke the only truth I knew: action. “Yeah, let’s get it,” I mumbled to Peggy. “We find the book, first. Then, we make a plan. Why do we need to get the chain?”
“Celestine said it has the power of healing anything it surrounds.”
A light bulb went off in my head. Makes sense.
“Might even heal a vampire, if we’re lucky.” Peggy nodded, a ghost of a smile on her face.
In the distance, near the secret entrance of the theatre, something, someone pounded on the thick, metal door. The one no one knew existed. The secure, bolted entrance that led to the underground crypt. No one should have been able to find it.
And yet, someone knocked. Just the force of that blow shook the entire movie theater, down to its foundations. Like a hammer striking a gong, the knocking echoed, demanding an immediate answer.
Certainly, it wasn't one strike. That noise? There was more than just one person knocking.
knew immediately what I failed to understand. Closing her eyes, she stood very still. Then, her face turned alarmingly pale, as she breathlessly whispered, “It's them. The newborn army. They've come home to roost.”
“They followed us?” I asked, perplexed. “How’d they know where we were? I thought let this place was a secret even amongst the vampires?’
“It is,” Peggy nodded. “At least, it was. But when a vampire makes a newborn, that act establishes an unbreakable link between maker and remade. Celestine’s risen army? Those Reborn are hers, bound blood for blood.”
Just like in the movies, I thought.
“Four days ago, the hunters killed every Reborn I have ever known.” A single tear dropped, falling down her cheek. “Celestine had no one else to help with the rescue, right? The number of soldiers she needed… she raised them last night. So, they are blood-thirsty, unreasoning, driven by hunger. They will always seek her. In all the ways that matter, they are her children. They act as her family now.”
“It’s true,” I muttered, “I am the outsider here. I barely know Celestine. Only shared a few moments. I know precious little about your world and hers.”
Staring at my empty hands, I shook my head at my own pride. I’m a fool to even try to save her. Looking into her eyes though… I had to try. The cursed stubbornness I inherited from my bull-riding father settled into the crevices of my heart.
Only then did I acknowledge what my heart already felt in every beat: I’ve found something worth fighting for. At least, until Celestine was safe.
Then, I’ll damn sure stick around to see what this feeling is.
Perhaps, she could even fix the parts of me that were broken.
Nothing else had.
Oblivious to my inner dialogue, Peggy k
ept talking, offering a bit more advice.
I listened, absorbing everything I could, trying to understand the perils of this revealed world.
“I know her blood. I can feel it, sense it like a bonfire in the darkest shadows,” Peggy said, “Like these mad creatures, we are linked. Celestine is Home. They will follow the scent of her to the ends of the earth. And even underground here, deep in the crypt, buried in the stone arms of Gaea, they will always find her. Always.”
I understood their desperation. Day in and day out, the ache I felt of missing Marian mirrored their savage hunger.
That was the truth of it: I wouldn’t stop trying to reach the person I loved either.
When Celestine was struck by the exploding shell of silver, I thought the situation couldn’t get worse. Yet, it had. I jumped out of the frying pan and directly into the bonfire.
How do we escape a horde of newly-made vampires?
A few of them might know me. Some saw me last night, fighting by Celestine’s side. When we rescued Peggy from the hunter’s fortress under the HOLLYWOOD sign, the newly-made vampires only held off on hurting Peggy because Celestine demanded that obedience.
If Celestine doesn’t wake…. Nothing would stop our murders.
Peggy insisted I listen, even when I did not want to hear. By the second, the odds of us surviving the day evaporated. “Newborn vampires will not be fooled. And they will not leave. No matter what we do, they won't stop coming. Not till they reach her, not till they're sure she's safe.”
“Well, then just let them in,” I remarked “Obviously if we can't stop them, isn't it better that they're here with us, guarding her? It would be safer for her.”
“Yes,” Peggy said, “yes, it would be but... these vampires, well, I haven't been around any of them but... I will tell you this: these creatures are far more like spring-woken bears, wild orangutans, and merciless komodo dragons. Wild things—they cannot be reasoned with. These are not creatures that will stop.”
I gulped, pushing down my fear.
“Driven by loyalty and hunger, they will come here,” she stated the facts that led to our deaths, “There is no barricade big enough to hold them back. They will tear down these walls and burn the building above to ashes in order to get to her side. Then for the rest of eternity, they will guard her.”
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