Death Banishes (Mortis Vampire Series Book Six)

by J. C. Diem

  Geordie waved forlornly as I trotted in the direction that I could sense Gregor had been taken. I hated to leave the teen on his own, or the others for that matter but I couldn’t save anyone by standing around. As usual, I had to step up and be the hero. It would be nice if someone could save me for once, I whined to myself. My inner voice gave a snort of derision but refrained from commenting.

  Row after row of empty cells stretched onwards before finally stopping at a cave wall. I was strongly reminded of the First’s cavern of doom but it thankfully lacked humans roasting over a fire. Apart from their current few captives, most of the cells didn’t look like they had been used in a very long time. There were no smells of sweat, terror or the inevitable waste that was excreted by living beings. All I could smell was dirt and a faint trace of the toxic air from above that had probably come down the chutes with us.

  The cave wall was roughly hewn and stretched out in two directions. Heading towards the right, I followed the wall until it was broken by a tunnel. A Viltaran would have trouble fitting inside the narrow passageway but it was large enough for a human, or vampire as was my case. Moving quickly but quietly, I held the death ray in a death grip and jogged down the long, twisting tunnel.

  Quiet, high pitched voices speaking in an unintelligible babble reached me and I slowed down. Spying light, I crept to the end of the tunnel but made sure to stay in the shadows. Another large cavern waited. Instead of being full of cells, it was largely empty. Gregor knelt in the middle of the space, facing a semi-circle of tiny Kveet. Most brandished the long, thin explosives they had used to blow up the droid.

  Completely ignoring the Kveet, Gregor stared in revulsion at something beyond them. Shifting my gaze, I beheld what kept him so still. Ten creatures that looked like something out of my worst nightmare stood clustered together. Maybe ‘stood’ wasn’t the best word. How could you stand when you didn’t have any legs?

  As black as the shadow imps that had plagued me for a brief time, they were somewhere between five and six feet tall. Instead of arms and legs, they had hundreds of thin tentacles that writhed constantly. They didn’t seem to have a body or head, just a shapeless mass of jellylike flesh.

  One of the creatures clutched Robert’s severed arm in a tentacle. In a bubbling language that sounded like it was coming from underwater, the five were discussing it and their captive.

  “How do you think the primitive being managed to gain possession of this?” the one holding the arm asked.

  “It must have found the device,” another answered. “It is inconceivable that beings as un-advanced as these could have conquered one of the Viltaran’s personal droids.”

  “I say we destroy them all before they cause us trouble,” a third declared.

  “Let us not be hasty,” a fourth immediately argued. “We should study them first and see what information we can glean from them. We need to know where they came from. Perhaps they could turn out to be our allies.” Finally, an alien that doesn’t want to kill us on sight!

  “I concur,” a fifth said. “We should attempt to communicate with the creature instead of destroying it and the others that are being held in the cages.”

  Not wanting to put Gregor in danger, I pocketed the death ray, put my hands in the air and slowly stepped out into the cavern. I made it halfway to my friend before the Kveet spotted me. “Beware, one has escaped from its cage!” It came out so high pitched and panicked that I couldn’t quite stifle my snigger.

  My amusement changed to alarm when half a dozen explosives were hurtled towards me. The Kveet might be small but they could throw much further than I’d thought possible. The tiny brown bipeds turned and ran to escape from the blast zone. Putting on a burst of speed, I ducked and rolled beneath the flying explosives and sprinted to Gregor. Dropping to my knees, I shielded him with my body as the bombs went off in mid-air. Bright violet light bathed the area and my back was shredded down to the bone. My flesh healed instantly but my sweater and shirt were in ruins. They were held on only by the shoulders and sleeves now.

  “Are you alright?” I asked Gregor. Checking over my shoulder, a wide but shallow crater had been blasted in the ground.

  Shaken and still unable to take his eyes of the black, tentacle ridden aliens, he nodded. “I am well. How are the others?”

  “They’re being kept in cells but they’re ok, so far.”

  Finally tearing his gaze away from the aliens, Gregor stood, drawing me to my feet as well. He turned me around and examined my missing clothing. I was just glad my jeans hadn’t been destroyed. I could just imagine Geordie’s reaction if I had to walk around with my bare butt hanging out of my pants.

  “Your ability to heal still manages to amaze me,” Gregor said when I turned around to face him.

  “Yeah, me too.” As we spoke, the creatures I was beginning to think of as a cross between an octopus and a squid moved closer. They moved very fluidly on their tentacles, leaving hundreds of small divots in the dirt for footprints. A few of the braver Kveet joined them.

  “Bring the droid,” one of the Kveet said when they came to a stop. Several of the small beings pushed their way through the crowd and returned dragging what was left of a Robert clone. The droid’s arms and legs had been removed so he was just a naked torso and a head. The Kveet dumped the droid on his back and his head turned to examine us.

  “Tell these creatures that we mean them no harm,” an octosquid instructed the crippled robot.

  Red eyes shifted to the ten black aliens, stopping briefly on the severed arm in their possession before returning to us. “We mean you no harm,” the mechanical man said in English.

  “How can you possibly know our language?” I asked him.

  Gregor answered me. “I would assume that the robots are all linked somehow. Anything that Robert knew was shared with every other droid.”

  “This is correct,” the robot said. If that was the case then he knew all about my friends and I. They might even be aware of our strange abilities.

  “Tell them all that we aren’t a threat to them,” I told the robot. He dutifully repeated my words in the alien’s bubbling language and then again in Kveet.

  “What are you?” one of the octosquids asked.

  “That’s a long story.” Knowing me, I’d dig us all a hole so deep we’d never be able to get out of it if I tried to explain our history. “I’m Natalie and my friend is called Gregor. He is going to explain our origins.” Giving the dapper one a clap on the shoulder for encouragement, I motioned for him to begin our tale.

  Gregor summed our story up much more quickly and succinctly than I would have been able to. The ocotsquids and Kveet didn’t interrupt with questions or comments. If they’d been human, they wouldn’t have been able to help themselves. It was a crazy story no matter what species you belonged to.

  When he was done, I had the sense that the jellyfish-like aliens were sharing some kind of communication the rest of us couldn’t grasp. The Kveet hadn’t relaxed their vigilance and watched Gregor and I closely with their strange weapons at the ready.

  “Does your planet contain water?” one of the octosquids asked.

  “Earth has lots of water, both salt and fresh,” I told them. I wasn’t sure what that had to do with anything but Gregor grasped their interest immediately.

  “Humans are an intolerant species,” my friend said to the aliens. “They would undoubtedly kill you on sight.”

  “Why?”

  “Because, in their own way, they’re just as bad as the Viltarans,” I said to the group of black monsters. “Instead of killing you for pleasure, they would destroy you out of fear. They are scared of what they don’t understand and, no offense, but you guys are…” There were no words to describe them that wouldn’t cause at least some offense.

  Gregor stepped in, rescuing me from making an undiplomatic blunder. “You are not like any beings we have seen before and most humans would find you to be extremely frightening.” I sent him a grateful sm
ile for his intervention.

  “If they think we are frightening, they should see our cloned kin,” an octosquid whispered to the others. The robot didn’t bother to translate.

  “You are not from this planet, I presume,” Gregor said.

  “We are not,” one of the jelly bodied aliens replied. “Our world was conquered many millennia ago and has been reduced to ruin, like every other planet the Viltarans have come into contact with. Many of us were brought to Viltar to serve as amusement and to eventually become their slaves. We ten are all that is left of our species.”

  Knowing how they felt about being the last of their kind, I paused for a respectful moment before speaking. “The owner of that arm,” I pointed at Robert’s arm still in the clutch of a tentacle, “told me the Viltarans don’t just colonize other planets but they also war with each other.”

  “This is so,” was the response. “When they could not locate any more planets to plunder, they turned on each other. It is in their nature to destroy even if it is their own kind.”

  “I get the feeling there aren’t many Viltarans left. In fact, I’m pretty sure there are less than a hundred of them.” That had been all we had seen on the monitors.

  “We can tell that you are trying to make a point but we fail to see what it is.”

  “A long, long time ago, one of the droids crash landed on our planet and fed a vial of nanobots to a human. Doing so turned him into the undead and gave him a thirst for blood. Gregor has a theory that this should never have happened and that our species is a mistake. Fate wiped most of us out and sent the rest of us here. I have my own theory, that we were sent here to put an end to their reign of terror.”

  At their baffled silence, Gregor clarified my meaning for them. “Natalie intends to kill the Viltarans.”

  “Impossible!” one of the Kveet said in a high pitched voice. It pushed its way through the throng to stare up at me. “No one can match the Viltaran’s weaponry. Over a dozen worlds have fallen to them with only minimal resistance.”

  Gregor smiled down at the Kveet. “That may be so but we have a weapon that is far more dangerous than anything any world has ever seen before.”

  “What is this weapon?” one of the octosquids asked.

  My hand rose into the air. “That would be me,” I replied.

  .~.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Breaking into the babble my statement caused, I addressed the Kveet who had spoken. It was stooped and wrinkled, which probably meant it was in charge. “Do you have a name?”

  “I am M’narl.” It sounded like muh-gnarl to me and I doubted I’d be able to pronounce his name correctly. My brain did its best to translate but it wasn’t perfect.

  “What about you guys?” I said to the octosquids.

  “You would be unable to pronounce or understand our names. You may refer to us as you wish,” one replied.

  “What do we have to do to get our friends released?”

  “That is a decision that will be made by myself and the other elders,” M’narl answered. “You would have to give us a good reason why we should do so.”

  “Our planet was on the verge of being overrun by the clones created by the Viltaran robot,” Gregor said to the diminutive alien. “Between us, we have killed thousands of the grey skinned beasts. We are used to battling the clones and are accomplished at destroying their kind.” If he had been completely honest, he would have admitted that I had done most of the killing and members of two human armies had helped me out.

  “You have told us that you are a weapon that the universe has never seen before,” an octosquid said. “Explain how this is possible.”

  “I will, but only if you let my friends go,” I said bluntly.

  Clearly they didn’t trust us but we offered them possibly the first ray of hope they’d ever had. Motioning us to stay where we were, the Kveet and their black tentacle covered friends moved away, dragging the robot with them. The octosquids dropped down to Kveet height, spreading out in inky pools of constantly moving tentacles. From above, they would have resembled squished spiders with way too many legs. They had no idea we could hear every word they uttered, even if only one of us could understand them.

  M’narl kicked off their not so private meeting. “They have different coloured skin and faces but they resemble the Viltarans far too much to be trusted.”

  “They even admitted they have been infected with the nanobots,” another Kveet said.

  “The nanobots must have malfunctioned,” an octosquid decided. “They did not manage to convert the humans into Viltaran clones.” The robot automatically translated for everyone else while I murmured what they were saying to Gregor.

  “If they did manage to kill the Viltarans, how do we know they won’t simply take their place?” another aged Kveet demanded. No one had an answer for that.

  “Let us vote,” an elder said.

  When their decision was reached, M’narl strode back over to us. “We will free your friends and aid you to destroy the Viltarans in any way we can.”

  Gregor waited for the droid to translate and asked a pertinent question. “Are there any other life forms on this planet?”

  “Only we Kveet and our ten allies are left,” M’narl said sadly. “All other races and species have been converted into food for the clone armies.”

  “What are we going to do for our food?” I asked Gregor.

  “Do you really survive on blood?” a Kveet elder asked.

  “Yes,” I said and had to restrain myself from rubbing my empty stomach.

  “How much do you need?”

  I held my hands out and they peered into my cupped palms. “About that much each every few days or so.”

  “We should be able to supply you with enough food,” M’narl said. Gregor and I looked at their numbers doubtfully. There were less than a hundred of them and I doubted they would be able to feed one of us let alone all of us. Picking up on our doubt, the Kveet leader waved away our concern. “There are many more of us in hiding near the ruins of each city. We will send word and gather more of our kin together.”

  “What about our friends?” I reminded the little brown alien.

  “They have already been released.”

  Sending out my senses, I saw he was telling the truth and the captives were heading in our direction. Gregor and I moved to meet them when they appeared at the mouth of the tunnel. Geordie pushed his way through the group and ran to meet me. “I am so glad you are alive!” Wrapping his arms around me, he found only my bare back instead of clothing. “What did they do to you, chérie?” He turned an accusing gaze on the Kveet.

  Luc’s arm came around me and I leaned in to him. I almost started when his hand slipped into my pocket but he was simply retrieving the death ray.

  None of my friends or allies had spotted the octosquids yet and I thought it would be a good idea to warn them. “The Kveet have graciously agreed to help us and are willing to feed us their blood,” I told the group. Kokoro released Gregor and turned to face me. She might not be able to read minds anymore but she sensed my tenseness.

  “Why do I sense a ‘but’ in there somewhere?” Cristov asked more with resignation than suspicion.

  “But only because I said I was going to kill all of the Viltarans,” I told him. “By the way, there are ten other aliens in here that are probably going to scare the pants off most of you.”

  Ishida’s expression was haughtily amused. “I have played many computer games that contained all manner of disgusting and hideous creatures. I highly doubt…” His words trailed off and I guessed the octosquids had regained their normal height.

  Some of my kin again reached for weapons that had been left behind on Earth. Others staggered back a few steps, on the verge of running. Geordie’s mouth had sagged open and I was pretty sure he was going to scream once his shock wore off. Igor’s hand clamped over the teen’s mouth before he could voice his horror.

  “They don’t have names that we can
pronounce but I’ve been thinking of them as octosquids,” I said into the tense silence. “They have a tame robot that acts as a translator so they can understand everything we say.” My warning was taken to heart and words that may have sparked a war were swallowed.

  Igor leaned down to whisper in his apprentice’s ear. “Just think of them as giant jellyfish. They coexist peacefully with the Kveet and there is no reason why they cannot get along with us as well.”

  “Giant jellyfish,” the adolescent said faintly. “Don’t jellyfish have stings that can kill people?”

  “Yes,” the Russian replied gruffly, “but they cannot harm the undead.”

  Reminded that he had left humanity behind a long time ago, Geordie nodded and struggled to remain calm. Luc squeezed my hand and I realized I’d been holding his tight enough to crush bone. Nothing popped back into place when I eased my grip so maybe I hadn’t been holding him quite that tightly after all.

  “Now that your friends have been released, it is time for you to explain how you can be a weapon powerful enough that the Viltarans should fear you,” one of the octosquids said.

  Describing what I could do would probably cause confusion so I opted to show them instead. Grasping my left hand in my right, I commanded it to come free. Astonished murmurs swept through the Kveet. Concentrating, I eventually reduced Lefty to particles so tiny they couldn’t be seen. Then I enlarged the particles and clumped them together so the shape of my hand was apparent but appeared ghostly. None of the aliens in the room seemed to be impressed so I took my transformation a step further.

  Astonishment turned to alarm and the tiny brown aliens backed away when my body broke into tiny pieces and fell to the ground. Some of the Kveet covered their eyes in revulsion. Geordie looked like he wanted to do the same but managed to control his gag reflex this time. Within a few minute my whole body was a swirling mass of particles. Lighter than air, they formed into my usual shape without being solid and floated a few inches above the ground.