by Travis Bughi
And Drowin began to scream.
Chapter 23
The yellow light of the setting sun burst through the opening in droves of glory, battering the flickering torchlight with its constant, cosmic presence. Its warming rays penetrated Drowin’s cold aura and brushed against Emily so that her skin tingled to the touch. Her aim had been spectacular. She’d rarely seen anything so beautiful.
“AHHH!” Drowin wailed in terrible agony. “AHHHGHHAAA!”
The light struck him in the face first, laying into him with relentless aggression. His flesh erupted into smoke, and the faint noise of sizzling echoed parallel with cries of agony. Drowin shrieked and covered his face with his hands, shifting away only to have the sun assault other parts of his body. Drowin’s exposed skin began to bubble, and he turned to run for the door. He managed a single step, before the pain proved too much for him to handle, and collapsed to the floor where he began to crawl, reaching out one sizzling, burning hand after the next, his body twisting around trying to escape the all-encompassing sun. However, the pitiless light continued to pummel him.
“Help,” he said, whimpering. “Please, help.”
He gave up trying to crawl as his body began to convulse, snapping back and forth in a horrid display. Emily could barely watch.
“Please,” he cried out. “Cover it!”
Drowin desperately tried to cover himself with his inadequate clothing and curled himself into a ball to suppress his involuntary shudders. He was dying, slowly, and he screamed out again and again, weeping for help.
Yet no one moved. They only watched.
Borgan, dried blood still caked on his lips, cracked a malevolent smile, and the ogres turned to the leprechaun and then to Mark for orders, unwilling to act on their own accord to assist the last vampire in Lucifan. Emily looked to Mark, fearing that perhaps Duncan had been wrong and that the old knight’s allegiance had changed, but he merely looked away and pressed his lips together. Even Katsu seemed disinterested in Drowin’s plight. The shogun looked to Borgan and, when he saw that the leprechaun was making no move, chose to stay out of the affair as well. When his servants looked to him, he ignored them and folded his arms, keeping his eyes on Borgan in a gesture that indicated this was a conflict between business partners, one in which he was unwilling to get involved.
As Drowin withered in the piercing beams of light, he scanned the room in desperation, only now realizing no one would come to his aid. Not a single person in the room could be counted a friend. With only moments left, he reached out to an unlikely being.
“Borgan,” Drowin whispered, his flesh blackening and peeling off, “please.”
But the leprechaun answered with a look of disdain.
“You need me,” Drowin said, gasping.
In a wordless plea for mercy, the Count stretched out a single hand to the leprechaun. The hand began to melt, revealing boiling red blood underneath. Borgan took his time, contemplating, and Emily held her breath. She wanted to say something, but she knew no words from her would keep the leprechaun from acting. If she spoke now, it would distract him from his anger.
After what felt like an eternity—and probably felt even longer than that for Drowin—the leprechaun sighed and gestured to the nearest brute.
“You, ogre. Cover it. Use your body if you have to.”
The ogre grumbled over to the hole in the glass and leaned up against it. Just like that, the light was shut out.
Darkness encased the room again. The grey wisps of smoke from Drowin’s seared skin clouded the room and reflected in the flickering torchlight. The smell was atrocious, but hardly anyone seemed to notice. All attention was focused on the withering figure heaped into a ball near the center of the room.
Emily could hardly breathe as she gazed upon the once grand figure of Drowin. She waited patiently, eyes unblinking, hoping against all hope that it was over.
And then Drowin moaned.
“Damn.” She gritted her teeth.
“It was a good try,” Adelpha whispered.
“It was,” Emily said.
Silence dominated the room for a few moments as the sizzling remains of Drowin began to recover. He breathed sharply the first couple of times, his chest rising and falling with each rasping breath, until he could finally pick himself up. Even then, he stood with great effort, and Emily’s stomach lurched when she saw the damage the sun had done.
On his face, only a few patches of skin remained, singed and blackened around the edges. The rest appeared to have been burned off with fire. Drowin’s normally well-kept hair was mostly gone, leaving a scalding scalp that expelled smoke into the air. His lips had peeled back so far that one fang, still sparkling white, was permanently revealed. Along with his furious scowl, he looked like a demon.
And he was looking directly at Emily.
“You,” he said through clenched teeth.
“I told you to let me kill her,” Heliena taunted.
“Get out of here!” Drowin yelled.
Ichiro smirked at Drowin’s anger, his exterior showing no signs of fear, but his body spoke otherwise. The ten ogres leading Katsu continued out through the chamber’s doors, and Heliena’s husband began to follow them. Of the fifteen ogres remaining in the room, three came over to watch over the two amazon prisoners.
As Heliena turned to leave, she gave Emily and Adelpha one last glance.
Emily thought Heliena was going to say something, and perhaps she had intended to do just that but found nothing worth the effort. Emily surely wanted to say something, but as her eyes bore into Heliena’s, she could think of nothing but her hatred for those beautiful eyes. Heliena returned the gaze with an equal hatred, only hers was covered in satisfied superiority. She had won, and she knew it. She met Emily’s eyes, and the whole room was reduced to the silent exchange. Every eye watched them, and even Drowin’s ever-present aura seemed insignificant at that moment.
Then Heliena broke the gaze and began to walk out the doors, leaving Emily to watch her go. Her hips swayed with jaunty pleasure as the servants followed just a few steps behind her. Takeo was the last to leave, and once they were all beyond the threshold, he turned around to shut the doors behind them. He looked at Emily briefly, his face hinting at something akin to guilt, before closing the heavy doors for good. In the silence that followed, Emily was left in a room with fifteen ogres, six knights, one leprechaun, an amazon, and one infuriated vampire.
“You.” Drowin seethed as he looked at Emily. “You.”
He trailed off, unable to put words to his anger. Emily turned to look at the Count and then instantly looked away. His face was a twisted, mangled, decayed version of its former self, and the pain written in such disfigurement was now directed toward Emily.
“You are the most wretched banshee I have ever met,” he said. “You have tried to kill me for the last time! And to think I was going to let you live.”
“Now will you kill them?” Borgan asked.
“Just her,” Drowin replied, then added after a pause, “and him.”
The Count raised a slender, blackened finger into the air and pointed.
“Me?” Mark balked, the color draining from his face. “What? Why me?”
“You did nothing!” Drowin shouted. “That’s why! I could have banished you along with the others. I could have drained you of blood from the start and had an ogre take your place, but no, I didn’t! I kept you not only alive, but also in power, and you repay me by watching me die in front of your very eyes. Now, I’m going to return the favor.”
Mark was shaking in terror. He stuttered and looked at Borgan before raising his own accusing finger.
“But sir,” he said.
“Silence,” Drowin said. “I don’t want to hear it.”
Mark choked as his next words were jammed back down his throat. Everyone knew what had been hanging on his lips, but none said it. Borgan had been just as hesitant, just as unwilling, to save Drowin, and Mark had been about to say so. Mark had
n’t been the only one to stand idly by, but he had been the only one to make the wrong decision in doing so.
Unlike Borgan, Mark was expendable.
Drowin knew full well that his lack of trusted allies had nearly caused his downfall, but that didn’t make the excruciating pain of direct sunlight any more bearable. He needed to make an example of someone, and the death of a leader beneath him would do wonders not only to alleviate his anger and motivate the scum, but also to eliminate a potential enemy.
Mark had overplayed his hand and so realized, quite wisely, that nothing he could say would save him. He stepped back, but struck a wall of solid, purple bodies. The ogres were not loyal knights, sworn to duty and honor. They were loyal only to their employer. Mark shuddered as Drowin approached.
“No! Please! Don’t poison me!” Mark begged.
“Oh, don’t worry. That’s a pleasure I’m going to save for her. But you? I think you need a lesson in sympathy. I heard about your suggestions to the angels, saying they should wipe all of us vampires out of existence. I’ve seen how you look at the ogres and minotaurs, too.”
Drowin reached the quivering Mark and grabbed him by the neck. Mark gripped the vampire’s arm and tried to pull himself free, but it was no use. With little effort, Mark was dragged away from the grinning ogres by an icy touch Emily knew all too well.
“I think you hate non-humans,” Drowin accused. “I have this sneaking suspicion that, for a knight who’s supposed to be all about honor, equality, and fairness, you are actually a bigot. So I think I know exactly what I’m going to do to you. Look at me!”
Mark had desperately tried to avoid looking at Drowin’s hideous face, but when the vampire roared at him, Mark obeyed and met the vampire’s gaze. He cried out, unable to contain his fear.
“Do you know what it’s like to have your skin burned off?” Drowin asked.
“No,” Mark whimpered.
“That’s right; you don’t,” Drowin replied. “But I’m going to fix that for you, right here and now. You’re going to learn what it’s like to feel real pain.”
Drowin opened his mouth and pulled his blackened lips out of the way, baring white fangs. Mark began to cry and beg, “No! No!” and then he yelled out as Drowin yanked him forward and sunk fanged teeth into his neck. Mark screamed and screamed, and Emily couldn’t bear to watch. She turned her head, blocking the sight but unable to shut out the screams, each one fainter than the last, until they mercifully ended with the soft sound of slurping. She risked a glance back and saw Drowin pull away from Mark and then drop him to the ground. The knight collapsed into a heaped pile, unmoving.
“There’s one hour of sunlight left,” Drowin said, wiping blood off his chin. “Your entire body, rather than just your heart, will be like mine before that time. I’ll have that ogre step away from the window, and then I’ll wait just outside where I can hear your screams of agony. You’re going to die a horrible death. Do you understand?”
Mark sobbed quietly on the floor, giving no response to Drowin’s threat, and buried his head into his palms.
“Pathetic.” Drowin spat Mark’s own blood over him and then whirled on Emily. “Now, I believe you were next.”
Emily stiffened to prevent herself from crawling back. She didn’t want to show Drowin the fear she felt inside. After seeing Mark weep like a child, she had just about lost it herself. She already knew what Drowin had planned for her. He was going to inflict her with basilisk poison.
“You’ve been a remarkable pain in my side, Emily,” Drowin said as he walked towards Ephron’s throne. “I’ve been embarrassed multiple times, shot in the face, and nearly burned alive, twice! You’ve nearly unhinged my business deals and have managed to wiggle free from defeat more times than I care to recall. Up until a moment ago, I was about to offer you a place at my side, but I suppose that would have been a useless request now, wouldn’t it?”
Emily said nothing. She was trying in vain to stop the quivering in her body. She felt like throwing up, and it took all her effort to remain calm. In her mind, all she saw was Heliena nicking her leg with a basilisk-poisoned knife and the excruciating pain that followed.
“I think, just for the sake of irony, that you should leave this world in the exact same fashion you intended for me,” Drowin said as he picked up the basilisk cage.
With the hollowed treantwood in one hand, Drowin walked over to Emily’s bow and picked it up, as well. He looked it over as if inspecting it and seemed content with what he found.
“You there, ogre,” Drowin called out. “Throw me one of her arrows and then hold her down.”
An ogre behind Emily pulled an arrow out of her quiver and flung it over to Drowin. It clattered to the ground before him, and he reached down to sweep it up. Heavy, strong, four-fingered hands clamped down on her shoulders, and she could no longer shake. Carefully, slowly, Drowin cracked open the hollow basilisk cage, ever so slightly, rammed the arrow’s tip inside, and then yanked it out, holding it up to show the tip was now coated with a black liquid.
“The basilisk is dead, actually,” Drowin muttered as he set the cage down and placed the poisoned arrow to Emily’s bowstring. “Heliena didn’t feed it or give it water, you see, but its poison still works. You could ask the vampires I killed, if you like, but you’ll find out soon enough.”
Drowin drew back the arrow, and the ogres holding Emily gave each other nervous glances. The others stepped away, pulling a kicking, struggling Adelpha with them, but Emily did not attempt to move. There was nowhere to go.
“Now, I’m not a very good shot with this,” Drowin admitted, “but I’ll do my best to hit your stomach, okay?”
Emily tried to stop the tears, but as she closed her eyes, she felt the trickle of water run down her face.
Through closed eyes, she heard the creak of wood as her bow was pulled back a little further. It didn’t sound taut, though. Drowin didn’t want her to die from the arrow shaft piercing her body. He wanted her to die slowly from the poison. And there’d be no angel to save her.
“Good bye, Emily Stout,” he said.
Thack.
Emily heard the arrow string vibrate on release, and a moment later the wooden tip of an arrow rammed into her upper thigh, off center, striking hard muscle rather than precious arteries—a mere flesh wound that, in normal circumstances, would have only stung rather than seriously injure. Were it not for the poison, she’d have been able to walk away with nothing more than a limp.
Emily cried out and opened her eyes. She stared down at the arrow and cried out again. She squeezed her eyes shut against the agony once more and pictured the basilisk’s poison streaming into her. She screamed through clenched teeth, trying to swallow the pain, but it didn’t work. She opened her eyes and looked down again to see a thin line of blood trailing from the wound.
“That’s right,” Count Drowin whispered. “Die, little farmer.”
Emily winced and gasped. The arrow sting shot through her whole body with a red-hot intensity. Her brain was sounding an explosion of warnings in her head, and she cried out again.
And yet, something was wrong.
It should have hurt more, a lot more. Emily remembered all too well the pain of basilisk poison. When Heliena had nicked her, her whole body had burst into flames. She’d convulsed like Drowin had in the sunlight, and her insides had felt like they were being disintegrated. That was pain, real pain.
Emily winced again and took a few sharp breaths. Her leg was still stinging like crazy with an arrow shaft in it, but after a moment of panicking, she realized that, quite miraculously, she wasn’t going to die.
She looked up at Count Drowin’s shocked face, noticing his blackened skin had regained a touch of its former pallor, and gritted her teeth at him as she swallowed away the fresh wound.
“Ow,” she muttered.
The room went silent.
Everyone was too stunned for thought. Emily felt the purple hands lift off her shoulders, and she looked
away from Drowin. Of the fifteen remaining ogres, all except the one blocking the broken window took a step back. Borgan looked terrified with one hand covering his gaping mouth. Still on their knees and surrounded by ogres, the knights stared with wide, disbelieving eyes. Beside Emily, still on her back, lay Adelpha with a look of hopeful bewilderment despite the tear trickling down her cheek.
“That is impossible,” Count Drowin said, stuttering.
He dropped the bow to the ground beside the basilisk cage and instinctively stepped back, seeing Emily shake off the effects of a substance that could kill immortals.
“This, this can’t be.”
Drowin took another step back and then became aware of the others in the room. As he had shrunk back in fear, the others had shifted their gazes from Emily to him. The ogres, the knights, Borgan, all were seeing for the first time that Count Drowin was not invincible. He was afraid.
The realization snapped him out of his terror, and he bolted upright, snapped closed his open mouth, and adjusted his coat—similar in mannerism to how Borgan had tried swallow his own terror. Only there was nothing comical about Drowin’s words as he stared at Emily with renewed determination and growled.
“Why won’t you just die?”
He took a step forward, and the purple hands fell heavy on her shoulders. She looked up and saw the ogres had shook free of their own shock now that Drowin had. They bared their teeth, and their disgusting breath washed down over her. She jerked away and looked back to Drowin as the vampire took another step forward. Then, from behind the heavy doors leading into the chamber, Emily heard the quiet, clinking noise of metal clinking on metal.
It was light and faint, but in the silence, it pulsed through the doors and into the room with surprising clarity, making Drowin pause. Louder and louder it grew as the noise climbed the stairs and drew closer and closer to the door. As all eyes turned towards the entrance, the clinking noise was joined by the heavy sound of boots. The footsteps ascended the stairs, crossed the short hallway, and stopped right outside the door, where the clinking came to an ominous end.