Most of the stalls and snack carts had been upended, but from what I could see no one was hiding behind the chaos. And the echoing chatter of crickets across the grass seemed to be a song of reassurance that nothing was out here but me. Not enough reassurance that I’d call out to anyone, though.
With my belt tightened around my blood-stained dress, I started walking again, slowly and with controlled breaths. Falcon and Mike taught me well how to be prepared for anything to attack, so I walked also without too much fear. Tension, more than anything. And really cold ears. Of all things.
The foggy cloud wafted away with each of my steps, like steam breaking around a light globe, and as I drew closer to the edge of the cliff, I could finally hear sounds of life. Or rather, death.
I sunk the tip of my sword into the ground and leaned one hand on it like a walking stick, watching over the cliffside for a moment. A true-life battle sounded very different to the clinking swords and screaming in movies. It was really more grunting and whipping—the sound of a blade moving fast through the air, meeting flesh in a meaty splash followed by the end heave of breath as the victim felt the life leave him. Or, in our case, temporarily leave him.
The beach was scattered with lost clothing and bodies. Vampires by the hundreds had clearly been slain, and as the venom rearranged their cells and returned them to human state, their limp bodies had obviously been tangled up in scuffles and the odd limb sat apart from a body here or there. The fog was thinner down there, but not so thin that I could make out the entire cove, or spot David. And not thin enough for the men down there to see clearly. Half of them were fighting blindly, while the other half were fighting a losing battle. I could smell the warmth of blood leaving their bodies, the scent rising up over the cliffside like a Sunday roast in a hot oven, making me hungry. I loved the smell of vampires dying. Especially vampires that attacked my lands. Killed my people. I would lick the taste of death off them all, if given a chance.
“Ara.” A thick hand grabbed my arm and yanked me backward. “Watch out,” the voice said calmly, and as I looked up at him, Ryder’s eyes went to the ground at my feet.
“Oh. Thanks.” I took a calculated step away from the edge I nearly leaned over, and as the fog shifted, it revealed a severed hand beside my foot—no body in sight. I covered my mouth. “That’s Lilithian.”
“No kidding,” he said absently, dragging me away by the forearm. “Those vampire bastards keep their limbs attached. Until they’re dead.”
I looked up at him. “So none of them are immune?”
“No.”
“Why would Drake send—?”
“Because he didn’t send them here to win.”
“Then why are they here?”
“Some kind of distraction, but we don’t know what for.”
“Me?”
“If that was the case, you’d be gone already. By the way—” His steps halted, and he drew me a little closer, his fingers so tight around my skinny little arm that my blood stopped. “We’ve been looking everywhere for you and Falcon. Where the hell have you been?”
I thought about Falcon lying in that guest room, unconscious and unable to protect me, as was his life’s mission, and buried the truth deep in the pit of my stomach. “He… I gave him the slip,” I lied.
“Why?”
“He wouldn’t let me save some people in the manor.”
Ryder just rolled his eyes. “We’ve been worried. Do you know where he is now? We can’t find him and he’s not answering his phone.”
“He’s looking for me,” I lied, wishing it were true. “I left a trail that’ll lead him to the Garden of Lilith.”
Ryder let go of my arm then. “Fine. Now, what are you doing out here?”
“I came to find you guys. But now I’m kinda wondering if David’s okay.”
“David? Since when do you care about him?”
“You didn’t see?” I asked. “At the ball? We reconciled.”
His eyes questioned that while his lips approved. “Well, last I saw, he was fine.” He nodded toward the beach. “We backed them onto the shore. They came up over those cliffs about an hour ago and just started hacking up civilians.”
I covered my mouth again. A useless move really, because it couldn’t change anything. “How many have we lost?”
“No idea. But between soldiers and civilians, the numbers top double-to-triple digits.”
“Oh God.” I dropped my sword and braced my hands on my knees. “How could this happen, Ryder? We—”
“The element of surprise.” He folded his arms, shaking his head. “And that is the only way.”
“How did they surprise us? We’ve got this island guarded better than Fort Knox.”
“An insider, we think.”
“Who’s we?”
“Whoever I’ve talked to while I’ve been cutting up vampires, Ara.” He started walking. “Does it matter?”
“Not right now.” I started walking too. “But it will.”
“Well, whoever it is is probably long gon—” He coughed out the last word, slowly cupping the metal blade sticking through his chest from behind.
“Ryder!” I screamed.
His eyes met mine in an infinite stare as the shock sunk through us both, and I stepped back as he plonked down in a heavy heap at my feet, his head rolling off his shoulders a second later.
“No!” I stumbled back into the fog, seeing only the feet of my attacker before a black hand reached out and grabbed my wrist.
I yanked it back, preparing to strike with the full force of my electric light, when his voice made it through the barrier of my shock and fear. “Ara.”
My eyes met his. “Quaid?”
“It’s okay. You’re safe.”
“Oh my God.” I looked over at Ryder’s head, still wobbling into position. “You’re the traitor. You—”
“He was the traitor, Ara.”
Two more guys appeared in the cloud behind Quaid then, their arms folded, looking down at Ryder’s head. All I could hear in the silence that followed was that strange sound of battle and my own heavy breath, moving the thick fog aside each time I exhaled.
“Ara.” Quaid moved forward to help me stand straight. “I’m sorry. But he meant to hurt you.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Actually, we do, Your Majesty,” one of the other guards said. “We tortured a Warrior. Gave us all the details.”
“It’ll be in our report later.”
“Why would Drake send someone to hurt me?”
“He didn’t. He sent those men here to distract our knights.” Quaid pointed over the cliff edge. “Ryder’s beef must’ve been personal.”
“Why?”
“We didn’t get that much out of the prisoner,” one guy said.
“He had too much Created venom in his system,” said the other. “He’s in a coma. We’ll find out more when he wakes.”
We all looked up then to a loud crack, like thunder echoing across the lands.
“What was that?” I said.
“Guns,” Quaid said.
“Why are they using guns?” I asked, straightening my dress where it fell off my shoulder.
Another shot fired. Quaid clutched his sword, and the other guards disappeared. “Go back up to the manor, Ara,” he said. “I’ll—”
“No way. I’m coming with you.” I dug my sword out from a muddy heap. “David’s down there.”
He looked at me, looked in the direction of the manor, then the beach, and his shoulders dropped as he sighed. “Fine. But stay out of sight.”
“I will. I promise.” We started running. “Once I find David.”
* * *
The fog on the beach was thicker than it looked from the cliff, as if it’d resonated here and crawled up over the cliffside like creeping hands. I could just make out heads and shoulders through it, which made it hard, in the accompanying darkness, to discern who was who. The only identifier was the black uniforms against the
red.
Quaid leaned in as we stood on a rock a few steps above the battle, and said, “I could make a Trekky joke here. But I won’t.”
I frowned at him. “A what?”
“You know, red shirts—” He stopped when he noticed my utter confusion, then just smiled and looked away again. “Never mind.”
“So, how do we go about this?” I asked, my right hand crossing my body to clasp my sword.
“They’ll notice us any second now, then you won’t have to ask that.” He grunted then as he put his sword up, barely quick enough to block an attack.
A short, embarrassing scream shot out from my lips and I ducked into the shadows. The fog moved around me, a protective sheath, and I sat against the cold rock wall with my knees up, my hands dug into the sand. Real life battle was a lot scarier than training.
“Ara. Are you okay?” Quaid called out, his voice slightly muffled.
“I’m fine,” I whispered, hoping he heard me. There was no way I’d yell and advertise my position. But when he responded with only a deep, bellowing scream, my feet found the sand faster than my hands could grab my sword, and fear took a back seat to my protective instincts. I darted through the maze of shifting bodies and ducked under a few swings of heavy weapons, God knows what they were, coming up to Quaid’s side as he hit the ground, hidden in the thicker clouds closer to the rocks. Sand puffed up with the force of his fall, covering his bloodied hands and stomach. He shook violently, his wide eyes drawing my face in.
“That really hurts,” he strained.
I laughed, applying pressure to his gut with both my hands. “If you were human, this’d be the end of you.”
He nodded. “I know.”
“So, what was… Quaid?” I stopped and drew my hands back. “Quaid?”
He let out one last breath and turned his head, his lips so relaxed in a state of death that they fell toward the ground, covered in sand.
“Quaid?” I shook his shoulders. “Quaid.”
“He’s gone—for now.”
I jumped to my feet as I spun around instantly and threw my arms around the thick, bandaged neck of my adoptive big brother. “Falcon. You’re all right!”
“Thanks to you leaving that vampire dripping over my mouth.” He hugged me back tightly. “Good job.”
“You’re welcome.” I drew away and hooked a finger over the very red bandage, peeling it down slightly. “It’s not completely healed, is it?”
He shook his head. “There’s a very deep, very nasty gash there still. But I’ll be fine once I eat some of these bad guys.”
I laughed, not just at his comment, but at his cheeky face as he said that. “You see Ryder as you came down?”
“No. Why?”
“He’s dead,” I said, and bent to grab my sword from beside Quaid’s temporarily-dead body.
“Dead? As in—”
“As in…” I sheathed my sword and moved around to the head of Quaid’s body to grab his wrists. “Quaid killed him. Chopped off his head.”
“Why?” Falcon sounded hurt and angry and somewhat scared.
“He’s a traitor,” I said simply, dragging Quaid. “Well, was a traitor.”
“Traitor?”
“Yep.” I dropped Quaid’s heavy body out of sight and made a swiping motion across my neck. “So Quaid took him out.”
Falcon’s eyes darkened sadly. “Shit.”
I shrugged. “Never mind him. This beach is crawling with the enemy. We need to help out.”
“No. I need to help out,” he said, grabbing his sword with one hand, aiming a finger at me with the other. “You need to go hide.”
I just laughed, drawing out my own sword.
Falcon groaned. He knew me too well.
“I’m down here now, Falcon,” I said, “I might as well kill a few pests while I’m at it.”
He looked terrible standing there half folded over, blood seeping out under his bandage and down the white shirt under his uniform, but he still looked mighty and brave. His eyes squared with concern as he clearly considered his options, and finally, it sunk in. He looked at my party dress, his eyes sweeping the torn skirt and the blood stains, landing finally on my sword. “Is that Nhym?”
I held her up. “Yep.”
“Use your Cerulean Light. Okay?”
“Got it.” I nodded, and Falcon took one step backward, blending with the fog. When it shifted a second later, he was gone.
I looked back down at Quaid. “Don’t lose your head while I’m gone, okay?” I said and darted off to my left to find myself a vampire for dessert.
The rock cliff became a friend at my back, giving me a rare chance to plot out my next move. Something I knew my knights didn’t need. But they didn’t have an unborn baby to protect.
Following the wall, I headed toward a great mass of rocks I knew were just up ahead and got to higher ground, searching the foggy battlefield for any sign of David. There were about twenty heads as far out as the waterline, another group down the far end of the beach, and a smaller cluster a few meters off to my right just under the lighthouse where the cove ended—roughly the same place David would’ve found my washed up, mutilated body after I jumped.
I hopped down off the rocks with a very graceful leap and landed with bent knees in the hard sand, then took off at a run toward the rocky grave of my past. David had to be there.
A few steps out from the wall, the sand was all soft and kicked-up, covering the dead and making them hard to navigate around. I walked a little slower, holding my sword with two hands above my shoulder. Falcon would shake his head if he saw me now, but I felt safer with a baseball bat than a sword by my leg. Hit first, stab later. Some sword master I turned out to be.
As I weaved through the carpet of dead things, listening intently to my own steps, my own breath and the beating of my heart, another sound entered my immediate circle. I squatted quickly as a whip of wind went over my head and, without first checking who it was, swung my sword back with one hand and felt it connect with rock. A man screamed, clutching the gash in his shin, and I drew my sword over my head as I stood tall, bringing it back down into the socket of his eye. He didn’t scream this time. Didn’t make a sound. Just looked right into me as time slowed down around us and he realized what was about to happen.
A small pocket of blood spat out over his cheek and wrapped the tip of my sword as the end connected with the metal-like skull beneath it. The impact took his last breath, and he frowned as he reached for the ground, kneeling slowly down before falling onto his side, his eyes wide and fixed on nothing.
I propped my foot on his cheekbone and pulled hard to dislodge my weapon from his skull. It scraped past the rock-hard bone with a chalky sound, entering the air again covered in… bits of that guy’s head. If my stomach churned, I didn’t notice.
“Gross,” I said, and wiped both sides on his jacket.
“Ara?”
The love and concern and familiarity of his voice filled me up with excitement and hope before I even saw his face. I threw my sword down and jumped into his arms, wrapping myself entirely around him, legs and all, not even checking if he was injured. “David! You’re alive.”
“Of course I’m alive.” He hugged me once then leaned back slightly. “Did you expect I wouldn’t be?”
“You’ve no immunity.”
He smiled, swiping something wet off my cheek, then flicked it away. “I don’t need it—never had it for any of the battles I’ve fought in my past.”
I hugged him again. “I was worried.”
“You were worried?” His eyes widened around a smile, hands tightening around my waist. “I heard Quaid call your name about ten minutes ago and I’ve been shattered with concern ever since.”
“Really?”
He nodded. “What are you doing down here?”
“Looking for you.”
“Well—” He put me down, making sure my feet were steady before letting go. “You’ve found me. Now—Shit!” We bot
h leaned swiftly to the left as a sword slashed the absent air, and David’s dagger came out of its belt and lodged into the ribs of a vampire before I even spotted it.
Another one launched out of the fog then, waving his weapon around like a ninja.
David laughed, pushed me aside with one hand, and yanked his gun from his belt. He aimed with a straight, steady arm, and fired.
The shot cracked the air and I covered my head, turning away from the sound. My ears rung in three different tones, the momentary deafness taking half my ability to see as well.
“Ara.” David grabbed my face and checked every inch of it with desperate eyes before relaxing. “I’m sorry. I know that was awfully close to you.”
“I’m okay,” I breathed, nodding to convince myself. “That was just really loud.”
He smiled. “I know. But it was either your ears or your head.”
“I prefer the ears,” I said, cracking my jaw to pop them.
“Good choice. Now, come on.” He grabbed my hand. “Let’s get you out of here.”
“Or you could stay and have it out, like old times.”
David stopped abruptly, his throat shifting as his eyes went sideways to find me, then he turned around, tucking me conspicuously behind him. “Zane.”
“Long time, my friend.” The extremely tall, unnaturally sizeable figure stepped out of the fog, and I balked at the sight of him—his neck as thick as my waist, his eyes dark as the Devil’s soul, his body scarred in life beyond what vampirism could repair.
“I’m no friend of yours,” David said coolly, readjusting the grip on his sword. Ara. Run. Now, he thought.
Why?
Just do it.
My foot shifted backward, turning slightly, but before I could run for my sword on the ground just a foot away, an arm circled my neck. I screamed as it yanked me away from David, his hand slipping from mine as the fog swallowed him whole. All I saw as I hit the sand face-first was a broadsword high in the air, blinking against the flash from the lighthouse.
Echoes & Silence Part 1 Page 57