Moonlight War- Act II (The Realmers Book 3)

by William Collins

  As Tyrell finished his pre-battle speech, murmurs broke out across the church. The vampires were barely audible in their silky whispers, but the werewolves were more than perceptible in their grunting and angry barking.

  “Yeah, yeah we know they’re the big bad and all that, let’s just go out and fight ‘em already,” Lok drawled.

  “I don’t care how evil they are or what magic they know,” Vore growled. “My pack will still rip them to shreds.”

  “Aye, we will,” said Kane, even though he glared at the vampires and Venators around him in raw hatred. When Kane had first arrived, he’d shoved Quinn away from Brooke, just for talking to her. Brooke had longed to direct a lightning bolt into his massive retreating back, but had stayed her hand.

  Quinn alone was silent now as the rest of the pack roared in unison, psyching themselves up for the battle.

  The vampires were quiet as always as they prepared, but there was tenseness to their pale bodies and an anxious light in their crimson eyes.

  From studying the room, Brooke guessed the number of vampires in Hallia’s coven was around thirty, whilst Vore’s pack numbered a little less, likely due to members of his pack being picked off by the Rakarn in recent days.

  Out of all the Venators, only Lok showed no nervousness. He was a ball of energy, chatting amicably to everyone, whilst twirling the hilt of his sword in-between his fingers, itching to set off.

  Tyrell had taken over as the leader of the Venator contingent. Which Brooke was thankful for, as she knew she could trust him. It was hard to say whether Lyella begrudged Tyrell’s leadership or whether she just looked up her nose at everyone that way, and Arantay looked to be too preoccupied with his own thoughts to care.

  There was no need for a big pre-battle speech other than what Tyrell had said. Everyone already knew what they were doing.

  The plan was, in theory anyway, that the werewolves would take down their demented brethren, whilst Hallia’s coven would take on Kaymor’s coven. Leaving the Dark-Venators against those of Veneseron, Venator vs. Venator.

  Tyrell had warned that the battle could easily descend into chaos and that they’d likely need help as the Rakarn outnumbered the five of them.

  As Vore rounded up his pack and Hallia emerged from her tower, it was time, at last, to leave.

  Lok was first out of the door, Lyella scurrying after him like he was a dog who’d broken free of her leash. Vore’s pack had all worn baggy hoody’s to conceal themselves. As was their way, the vampires blended in with the shadows, becoming one with the night. It was midnight and there would be fewer pedestrians in the streets, but the Venators in their armour looked the only ones out of place. To Brooke the hooded lycans’ looked like a group of football hooligans. Hopefully, passer by’s would think that they were just lads going on a night out, and wouldn’t alert the police.

  Brooke was at the end of the procession, in-between Tyrell and Arantay. Even though she knew what was to come, she couldn’t help but to feel secure protected by those two. Now that they were heading to meet their enemy the realisation that she could be killed tonight kept reverberating through her head. Not only her, but her fellow Venators, they could all be slaughtered. No, don’t think like that. We’ll win.

  Everyone was silent, each lost in their own thoughts, mentally preparing for the battle ahead. They walked for a long time, but she’d lost track of time long ago. The only thing she became aware of was that they’d left London’s inner city behind. The only noise on the journey was Lok’s muffled shout far ahead; signalling they had reached their destination.

  Brooke moved out from behind the hulking figures of several shifters and looked out on an abandoned cluster of dilapidated warehouses. The Bektul warehouse, the place Falawn had told them about, was one of these broken buildings crowded together in the industrial block.

  Tyrell had stopped dead in his tracks. “I can sense them already.”

  “I smell magic, and the madness of my moon brothers.” Vore’s voice was thick with fury.

  Brooke extended her own senses, feeling out tentatively with her magic. After several moments, she too sensed something. Something dark and evil was out there, something that instigated fear into the very core of her being.

  Abruptly the pale shadows of the blood hunters flitted back out of the shadows. “I can smell the lesser coven,” Cazantian agreed, his beautiful face wrinkling in distaste.

  “Enough talk, I will rend these magic folk to ruin,” Kane snarled. “The same goes to anyone who gets in my way.” Kane stared pointedly at the vampires and Venators alike, then even at Quinn who glared back at him, resentment radiating.

  “You come with me,” he shoved Quinn hard from behind, pushing him in front as he stormed for the biggest of the warehouses, no doubt where he could smell his brothers the strongest.

  With an oath Vore set after him, Serren by his side and his pack behind him. Hallia nodded once and then his coven was gone in a blur.

  Tyrell turned to her. “Gather all the magic you have, Brooke. We’re up against nothing you’ve ever faced before. If the Rakarn are too strong I’ll contact the Fortress immediately.”

  Before she could set off after Tyrell, Arantay gently grabbed her arm. “I want to promise that I will protect you with my life.” Arantay’s face was filled with pain. “But that’s not a promise I can make when I encounter Falawn again. I might be so filled with anger when I see him that you would completely leave my mind. I’m sorry Brooke, I truly am.”

  “Thank you, Arantay. But don’t worry, I can look after myself.” She said the words as much to convince herself.

  “Right, c’mon, lets show ‘em what Veneseron’s got,” Tyrell cheered as they all set forward.

  The huge grey warehouses were like squatting metal monsters that swallowed them up as they entered their confines. Excitement, adrenaline, fear and fury all built up inside of her as Brooke gathered her magic. She was all too aware that she could be walking to her death, and her magic was the only thing that could save her.

  The biggest warehouse’s doors had been ripped off their hinges, leaving a gaping maw that devoured them one by one as they entered. The interior was gargantuan, so long that the figures standing at the end of it were barely discernable, and so wide that the huge pile of wood in its centre hardly took up any floor space at all.

  Brooke might’ve wondered why a pile of broken wood was amassed, she might have wondered at the broken metal structures of the building, how dangerous the points and spikes of those metal bars would be if you were thrown against them; but her attention was completely focused on the horrible, hissing black portal above them all.

  Vore’s pack and Hallia’s coven stood together, ready and waiting, whilst a mass of pale figures stood at the other end of the warehouse, with colossal black shadows prowling near them.

  A jolt of fear surged through her when she saw her fellow Venators walking to the end of the room. As she followed after them, the figures ahead became clear.

  Kaymor’s coven were like porcelain statues in the gloom. Brooke couldn’t see Kaymor himself, but Eskal stood at the heart of the group.

  Brooke felt her heart stop as the prowling monsters came into closer view. Her first thought was bears, or gorilla’s, but she knew it was the demented werewolves and shifters, corrupted by evil and trapped in their beast forms.

  Mangy fur clung to the beast’s muscular bodies. Their faces were grotesque, pulled into broad muzzles slathered with saliva, whilst their eyes bulged with hunger. Their jutting jaws and giant teeth thrashed and snapped at their presence. Brooke thought back to how scared she’d been when she had first seen Andon, now there was almost a dozen of them. Most were werewolves, but she noticed a rabid weretiger, werepanther and wereleopard, too.

  Eskal spoke at their approach. “Ah, the Rakarn knew you would come. Come to put a stop to their chaos. You will fail, I am assured, you will all fail.”

  Brooke was all too aware of Eskal’s scarlet eyes assaulti
ng her, until she saw the madman look up at the raging portal above. The ebony inferno raged above metal railings and a narrow steel bridge at the top of the warehouse.

  “They are coming.” Eskal rasped in pure awe and raving excitement.

  A huge blast of energy inside the portal punctuated his statement. Followed by another, and then another. The hairs all across Brooke’s body stood up on end, something atrocious, was about to enter.

  On the fourth blast two purple lightning bolts streaked across the surface of the obsidian portal and forms were coughed out of its roiling shadows.

  Seconds later more forms spilled out, until the swirling darkness had spat out a total of ten people, some of them accompanied by the horrific demons they kept as pets.

  The Rakarn resembled human teenagers, like her; apart for the mark of evil magic that infected them when she looked closer. Their armour was black as the void; and the majority of them wore horned helms. Only the unmasked Dark-Venators could maybe be mistaken for normal humans, the ones wearing helms appeared more like demons with vague human similarities. Their helms had glowing blue glass as the eyeholes and Brooke would rather meet the gaze of the demented wolves below than them.

  The unmasked Rakarn were all similar in that their facial features were oddly sharp; like reflections of humans that weren’t quite right. Brooke knew that the towers of Velkarath had twisted them all.

  With a sick dread, she recognised the bizarre twins Rath and Ragul. They cackled as soon as they dropped from the portal, hanging over the railings and pulling stupid faces at them all. They reminded her more of demonic minions than humans too, not helped by the twins’ luridly coloured spiky hair. Their faces were identical in their evil delight.

  Kady, the girl with pink pigtails was also unmasked and had two daggers drawn. She was quivering with excitement. Brooke realised with horror that

  Brooke also recognised the tall, voluptuous female with the red hair. Selina stood with an easy air of command and power, with poisonous green eyes and fleshy lips that Brooke suspected were always curved maliciously.

  She shrank in on herself instinctively when she saw Selina, remembering how Selina had slit her throat. She’d never be able to forget it.

  The portal pulsed one last time and a crackle of several bolts heralded the arrival of one final being. Brooke didn’t need to see Arantay’s body visibly freeze to recognise this figure.

  Falawn.

  The former elf of Veneseron forest stood before them. His face was expressionless, but his eyes shone with a fanatical light. He was the first to break the tense silence around the vast warehouse. He spoke to Tay, but did not deign to look at him.

  “I see that you have not changed Arantay, and now you shall die for your sins. as will Veneseron for their own.” Falawn’s voice still held the musical lilt that was common in all elves, but there was an underlying venom coating his words that should not have affected such a pure creature.

  Tay’s face was so grief stricken that Brooke could hardly bear to look at him.

  “Why?” Arantay managed to rasp, his voice thick with a thousand warring emotions. “Please, just tell me why.”

  “You know why, little brother,” Falawn spat.

  The twins giggled madly, drinking in the sight of Arantay’s tortured face.

  “No, I don’t,” said Tay. “I don’t understand how you could commit such a betrayal of Veneseron, your home, a betrayal of your own family?”

  “It was easy enough.” Falawn would still not look at Arantay. “Months before Kurrlan’s invasion, I stole a Rambrace and fled into the Realms, seeking a new world not tainted by Vanderain’s Venators. Instead I found Kurrlan. We cut a deal. I give him access into the Fortress, and he sends his demons to slaughter all the Venators. Little did I know that his pathetic army of demons were no match for you.

  “Truth is Arantay, that mother and father never worshipped me as they did you. You were always the golden boy, despite your…affliction. Even after you became a monstrosity, they doted on you, and neglected me. And you couldn’t even see it. You were so lost in your brooding and whining, you were so sure that our clan looked at you differently than before.”

  “So that’s it?” Arantay was incredulous. “All of this is because you didn’t get your own way as a child? You had them killed because you felt our parents treated me better than you? That’s beyond pathetic, it’s lunacy.”

  “There are reasons beyond counting for my actions, brother. You are one, our parents another; the trespassing Venators are another still. Everything that I once held dear in Veneseron was ripped from me, and for centuries I tolerated it. I kept to the forest; I suffered the Venators. But then they even began to invade our home, polluting the very trees. They thought they could walk freely in our abode, taunting and tormenting all the magical creatures that have lived happily since the forest’s creation.”

  “None of the Venators tormented the creatures of the forest, or even strayed far enough to our homes. They visited only to see the wonders of our home, not pollute anything,” Arantay cried.

  “You who have gone over to serve them could not begin to understand,” Falawn sneered. “You degrade yourself to aid them in your missions. That is worse than the vampiric blood in your veins. I would suffer in the shadows of the forest no longer, Arantay. I saw a chance to rid my world of the Venator scum forever, and I took it. Our family only stood in the way, they shared your ideals, they favoured Vanderain still. Yes, it is true I stood by and let the demons destroy them. I felt no sadness, no regret for their lives. They had lived long enough, living a pitiable existence, there was no point to them. The forest had to be cleansed of all its pollution and the demons would have done that for me.”

  “But,” Falawn snarled, “Kurrlan failed me. Veneseron and all its Venators still stood. I no longer had a home at all, but I did not give up my century’s long dream of restoring Veneseron to what it once was. I will never give up on purging all that has come to infect it. Another option lay open for me. Under Kurrlan’s service I had heard whispers of the Dark-Venators. I followed the paths of destruction throughout the realms and tracked them down. They hate Veneseron as much as I do. I was the perfect fit to join their ranks. I shall proceed to chip away at the Venators bit by bit, kill all those I come across. It may take many years, but the world of Veneseron will be cleansed once and for all, I assure you. When that day comes I shall return to my home, to live in bliss once again.”

  “You are deluded,” Arantay shook his head in horror and shock. Brooke felt disgust and incredulity at Falawn’s words, she couldn’t imagine how Arantay felt.

  “I almost pity you and your warped mind,” Tay said. “You could have co-existed with everyone in Veneseron easily; instead you want chaos and corruption, just like the Rakarn you now serve. You hypocrite, you always loathed magic and claim that was why you hated Venators, yet now you’ve allied yourself with that you hate. The Rakarn beside you wield magic just like the Realmers of Veneseron. I know you hate them too, you’re just using them to get what you want.”

  The Dark-Venators beside him murmured to each other at Arantay’s words and Falawn looked uneasily between Kady and Selina.

  “More lies, Arantay,” Falawn said quickly. “You always did spew bile.”

  “Your heart has never been pure like that of a real elf,” said Tay. “Vampiric blood may run in my veins, but the blood of a monster runs in yours.”

  Arantay looked beyond sickened, revolted by how deep his brother’s delusions went.

  “No, dear brother.” Falawn at last turned to look at Tay. “You are the monster, the abomination, as are all those you serve. Me and my new brethren shall rid you from the world, and that is an eternal vow I shall bind myself to with your tainted, filthy blood.”

  “Selina,” he turned to her, “lead your Dark-Venator’s to victory.”

  Selina’s iniquitous smile widened still further as she procured her whip of flickering scarlet fire.

  “R
ath, Ragul,” Selina addressed the depraved twins. “You’re masters of torment and cruelty. See to it that every Venator here suffers to the worst of your talents, especially that one.”

  Brooke’s insides froze as Selina pointed to her.

  Like two faithful dogs, the twins jumped at his command, vaulting the railings up above and landing amidst the demented werewolves below.

  “All of you, attack!” Selina shrieked, her scream rebounding off the walls like a terrible siren, signalling all hell to break loose and wash down upon them all.

  Chapter 52- Final Battle

  A hot, sick feeling rushed through Brooke’s body as Selina screamed for the Rakarn to attack.

  At once, magic blazed from Brooke and the fellow Venators beside her, even as she ripped free her sword. Demented and normal werewolves alike roared in a deafening cacophony, and the vampires from both covens flickered as they attacked, dancing around one another like shadows of slaughter.

  Arantay ran toward Falawn immediately. As he reached the spot below the railings he prepared to leap up from the warehouse floor. Falawn, however, thrust two Dark-Venators before him, commanding them to intercept the enraged Elfpire.

  Both Dark-Venators were bound to one grotesque demon each and all four beings dropped from the railings to smother Arantay, forcing him back. Falawn’s laughter rang high and cruel as he watched his brother disappear under their attack.

  Brooke dived out of the way as Vore’s pack thundered past her to attack. Their hoodies fell from them in shredded rags as the human in them contorted to chaos. Giant wolf heads sprouted, with wide muzzles and dirty dripping fangs. They met their berserk brethren in a maelstrom of ripping flesh and brutal savagery.

  Like a giant worm of fire, Selina’s whip writhed through the air, wrapping round Serren’s throat and smashing her mercilessly to the ground.

  Another wolf sought vengeance, but was met full in the face by Selina’s winged monkey demon.

  Brooke had no time to see more, as fierce blue light suddenly streaked toward her.