Rise of Midnight

by SARA FREITES

  “Oh. Right. I forgot,” Scythe replied to Vex.

  “Kill the girl, get the dagger, and let’s get the hell out of here,” Vex said.

  They lunged for us. With little movement, Blake nudged me probably harder than he meant to. I hit the concrete and tumbled to the other side of the roof. My arms stung with fresh scrapes. I watched as both Vex and Scythe tore into Blake like two rabid dogs. Blake fought back, drawing blood. This visibly caught the dark evnauts by surprise. Scythe bounced away. Vex reared back with what looked like engine oil running from his nose. He wiped it off with the back of his hand and frowned at the bloodstain.

  “Why, brother. That’s the first time I’ve ever seen you bleed!” Scythe howled with laughter.

  “Shut up!” Vex snapped, and he scowled at Blake. A sudden and very genuine smile spread across his face. “You’ve awakened your dormant powers,” Vex observed. “How exciting this must be for you!”

  He dove in on Blake, slamming his fists into his chest and side. Scythe leapt in and bit deep into Blake’s shoulder. Blake took hold of Scythe by his head and slung him over his shoulder, throwing him to the roof. The concrete cracked under the force of Scythe’s impact. Blake drew the Soleil Dagger from his jacket, and Vex stumbled away with a gash on his cheek. Black blood stained the blade of the dagger. Vex withdrew and levitated away from Blake. Scythe joined him in the air as Blake moved to his feet, the dagger in hand. I’d sat out of the way, unable to think or move until Blake flashed his eyes in my direction, probably wondering why I hadn’t left yet.

  “Lève-toi, gardien,” I whispered.

  My body grew ridiculously fast. Above, I caught sight of Vex baring his fangs at Blake. The twins dropped from the sky. They slammed into their half-brother. This drove Blake into the concrete. While my guardian spell took form, Blake kept the two at bay with the dagger until they dove on him together. I worried they’d caught him off guard when he’s blood splattered on the concrete around him. Vex rammed his fist into Blake’s stomach. He drew back with a bloody fist as Blake fell to his hands and knees, coughing up blood. An unexpected rage came over me.

  With my transformation complete, I didn’t hesitate to act. I bounded forward. With all of my weight, I plowed into Blake. I ended up knocking us both off the building. We plummeted at first, but as my wings grew in, I directed our fall into flight. Blake held fast to the protruding bone-spikes in my shoulders as I took us soaring over the city. I could hear the twins pursuing relentlessly behind us. My wings beat faster and harder while I picked up speed. Before I realized it, with no effort at all, I sailed past buildings at an incredible speed that even scared me.

  “Thank you. I’m healed,” Blake said into my ear. “I’m going to need you to take the role of the vampires for now, only I don’t want you fighting. Stay overhead at a safe distance until I need you. I’ll keep them away from you, but you’ll have to stay airborne and don’t take any chances. Alright?”

  I nodded, and he went on to explain.

  “Don’t worry. We’ll be okay. I’ll have to give you some sort of signal when I need you to dive in and pull me from the fight. If you come in to grab me, and they make a move for you, back off and try again. Chasing us around like this will drain them, too. They won’t have a chance to heal. I need to wear them out before we can lead them to the abandoned building. Hopefully, the vampires are okay and can help us there.”

  I nodded my massive head in response again.

  “I’ll trail off in their path and lead them away so you can get to safety. Keep moving, and watch for my signal,” he said.

  He unlatched from me and rolled off my left wing like a raindrop. As I cut to my left, I saw him plow into the twins far behind me. The three landed on a skyscraper. I circled the area with my chest becoming heavy with anxiety. The responsibility I had to uphold now felt overwhelming. It was easy enough to agree to Blake’s plan, but being sure I could carry out my part so flawlessly was another thing. Not only did I have to look out for myself during all of this, but Blake’s life was in my hands now, too.

  As the frightening drew on, I noticed Blake’s eyes glowed brighter than I’d ever seen before. I hesitated, wasn’t sure if this was his signal for me to intervene, but I didn’t want to take a chance. When I snatched him up, he looked like he’d gone through a blender. His left arm hung by a few stringy tendons, several rips adorned his chest and face, and I swore I saw exposed bone. I tried not to gawk as we flew away, his wounds quickly beginning to heal.

  “That was perfect, Autumn,” he panted. “If we do it like that every time, we’ll have no problem.”

  I went full throttle over the city. We did this multiple times, but it only wore us down with no sign of strife on the evnauts’ end. After snagging up Blake for the fifth time, I noticed my pace slowing, my wings and shoulders aching. And it only took that slight decrease in speed for the twins to catch up to us.

  I felt a strong hand squeeze my back paw. Blake cursed. Before I realized what was happening, the city around me turned to swirls of color and motion. While twirling through the air, I got my bearings as best I could. My paws scrambled for the roof of a building. My legs buckled on impact. Blake and I tumbled over each other across the concrete. Blake stood up as I rolled to a stop beside him. Every single muscle in my body tensed at the sight of Vex and Scythe.

  “Damn, she’s fast,” Scythe huffed.

  “Shut up. She’s only human. You’ll see,” Vex grumbled before shouting, “Quite the monster you’ve become, human! Just more of you to tear apart now.”

  The muscles in Blake’s arms visibly tightened. I bared my fangs. I was on the brink of nausea now, afraid to feel the pain they could potentially inflict.

  “Autumn, go!” Blake shouted and lunged at them.

  I lifted into the air. The dark evnauts jumped on him as before. Blake slashed at them with the dagger, slicing into their chests as the blade came across the air. The twins parted and bounced away. Blake went in after them. After circling a few times, I dove in for Blake when his eyes glowed bright again. He latched onto me, and I took us away. The twins tailed us, cursing.

  Several seconds passed before Blake slipped off my back. I pumped my wings as fast as I could while I watched the three evnauts fight in mid-air just below. Vex landed a powerful blow to Blake while Scythe tried to take the dagger away from him.

  Please, hold on to that dagger, I thought as Scythe bit into Blake’s wrist.

  As I circled above, the now gruesome, sliced-up mess that was Scythe turned his attention to me. His eyes narrowed at the sight of me. He started to move in, but Blake snatched him up by his pant leg and lobbed him toward the city below. Blake effortlessly jabbed the dagger’s blade into Vex’s side and tossed him aside, too. As the blooded twins collided and fell, Blake reached for me when I passed by. We were off.

  “Head for the abandoned building this time,” Blake said calmly into my ear and pointed at the burning building in the distance. “We need to look for the vampires when we land. Vex and Scythe are finally showing signs of exhaustion. And I think if they escaped the hellfire unscathed, the vampires can outmaneuver their attacks now.”

  I pumped my wings harder than I had all night. When we made it the derelict building that only burned from below, Blake instructed me to stop on one of the higher floors where the bright blue flames hadn’t yet touched. As I circled the building to find a place to land, fire trucks began pulling up. Blake advised me to enter from the other side of the building where they couldn’t see us. I moved us around the building and prepared to land on the top floor when something crashed into me from my right. It felt like I’d been hit by a car. I lost control of my flight, ramming headfirst into the wall of the building. My muzzle hit first. I tasted blood. My paws caught the ledge of a windowsill on one of the higher floors. Blake was pulled from me. I watched not only as my body began to shrink but also as the evnaut brothers drove Blake into the wall just beside me. The outside wall cracked at their impact. />
  My paws became hands. My arms grew weak, hardly able to hold my own weight anymore. My right hand slipped while reaching for a better grip on the windowsill. As that arm came away from the ledge, I felt my brother’s class ring slide from my thumb. Mortified, I watched it disappeared onto the street below. I gasped, infuriated. Not only could its sentimental value never be replaced, but now I was useless, unable to protect myself or Blake.

  Almost human, I used the last of my strength and adrenaline to drag myself through the broken window. There, I fell on a wet carpet in a gloomy, narrow hallway. The musky smell of old air, mold and a hint of smoke filled my lungs. The walls were cracked and dingy with the carpet rolling up at every corner. Judging by the randomly closed and opened doors lining the long hallway, the building must have been an old hotel property.

  Glass blew into the building. I rolled over fallen ceiling pieces as Vex, Scythe and Blake came through the window close by. I shielded my head from debris as the three evnauts tumbled across the floor. They hit the back wall by the warped elevator doors. I scrambled out of their way. The two brothers held Blake on the ground, knocking aside his hand that held the dagger. The dagger dropped to the ground.

  I watched in horror as the twins drove their arms deep into Blake’s chest. Blake gasped. Within seconds of this, Vex and Scythe had merged into one being—a navy blue-skinned creature with blacked-out eyes. A wispy smoke-like substance emerged from its flesh. The now unified being, with its arms still penetrating Blake’s body, seemed to reach farther into him. The being poured itself into Blake’s chest as if it were made of liquid and disappeared. Blake rolled onto his side. He wrapped an arm around his waist and coughed up blood, inhaling sharply as I went to him.

  “Blake?” I asked in a shaky voice, terrified of what I’d just witnessed happen.

  His skin darkened to a slate blue right before my eyes. The veins on the inside joints of his arms swelled and changed to black while his fangs grew longer, more snake-like. His eyes snapped opened, each different, but I recognized them—one a white and ruby blend and the other a red and yellow gem. I felt sick to my stomach, realizing what was happening.

  Blake eased himself to his feet. Every muscle in his arms flexed as his now hateful eyes fell on me. Before I could blink, he stood over me. He took hold of my arm and flung me aside. When my back hit the wall, putting a dent in the thin plaster, the air was knocked from my lungs. I fell to the ground wheezing. I caught a glimpse of Blake kneeling to scoop up the Soleil Dagger. He flipped it once in his hand. My arms moved by themselves to shield my head as he lunged at me with it readied. I cried out. The room became still. I peered through the barriers that were my arms to find Blake kneeling over me, the dagger held high over my head. He plunged the dagger into his own chest.

  “Blake!” I shrilled.

  Two other voices echoed his outcry, and a shadow fell over his body. There was movement under his skin, and I had to blink twice to be sure of it. He fell on his hands and knees over me. He wrenched the dagger from his chest and drove it into the carpet just inches from my head. He stifled himself, closing his eyes.

  “Run,” he whispered through his bared fangs.

  I pulled myself to my feet. He uprooted the dagger from the ground and slid it to me. It spun circles at my feet. I took it and darted down the dilapidated passageway. I’d never held it before, and its immense weight surprised me as did the strange heat radiating from its blade.

  Blake cried out, but then, the twin’s voices overshadowed his. I scrambled for the nearest staircase, avoiding debris along the way. Once there, I headed up another level, passing a sign that read “10th floor”. The outcries rebounded through the stairwell as I left it. I had to stop myself from turning back to help him as tears welled up in my eyes. Not knowing whether Blake would be okay or not left me lightheaded with worry.

  On the top floor, things were much the same as the one below—gloomy and eerily disheveled. The wind howled as it passed through the mostly shattered windows of the front wall. The blackened wallpaper and cracked doors were cold to the touch as I ran my hand along them to keep myself balanced while stepping over chunks of fallen ceiling.

  I hoped to run into someone from the vampire clan, hoped they’d all made it out of the fire. While traversing the partially water damaged hallway, a noise made me drop and crawl along the baseboards. Another noise, this time a scuffling sound, caused me to hold my place. Once all fell silent again, I laggardly got up with my back against the wallpaper. The feeling of absolute helplessness overtook me. I had nowhere to go, unbearably furious that I couldn’t use my guardian spell to fight.

  From down the hall, the sound of shattering glass had me so unnerved that I lost my footing while trying to duck into the nearest room. A stained mattress atop a rusted bed frame provided a perfect place for me to hide. There in the corner like a cowering puppy, I sat shivering. Footsteps reverberated off the walls. The hair on the back of my neck and arms rose like a wheat field. I held the dagger against me, its warmth penetrating my shirt.

  And then, it dawned on me. The evnauts could easily track my scent, could probably hear me breathing. Hiding was useless. I started losing my composure. My heart pulsated faster and faster, probably even drawing them closer to me. Sure enough, like two bloodhounds, Vex and Scythe had tracked me down, appearing around the corner into the room. I never even heard their footsteps. The bed dragged away from the wall, leaving me exposed. I sat there in the corner with my back against the peeling wallpaper. I didn’t dare

  move while the two brothers leered down on me.

  “Using you to kill our half-brother would be a great pleasure,” Scythe whispered.

  I could hear my hand tighten on the dagger’s leather handle. Vex reached for me. I moved to swing the dagger. Vex swiped away my wielding hand, effortlessly taking the dagger away. He cupped my face in his free hand, his piercing crimson and snowy eyes glaring into mine. The entire side of my head went numb from the cold of his skin. I shoved his hand away.

  “We should thank you,” Vex said. “Now that you’ve brought us the Soleil Dagger, we can pierce these ridiculous earth bodies and bleed out so that we can return to hell. Of course, not before taking your life and the life of our little brother. It’ll make for a more satisfying arrival into hell.”

  His grip tightened on my wrist. Scythe chortled. Before I could react, the brothers plunged their hands, Vex his right and Scythe his left, into my stomach. I felt a pressure in my chest and a cold pain everywhere. I shrieked as the two evnauts seemed to melt together at their shoulders, burrowing into me. The core of my being shook while I caught fire from the inside. My skin grew hot. Aches and chills racked my entire body. My chest heaved, and I thought I would throw up, but then, the twins were out of sight. I collapsed, practically convulsing. Finally, my body relaxed as I lay there paralyzed on the carpet. The pain subsided, and it left my skin feeling feverishly warm. I sat, it felt like, deep inside myself, looking through a pair of hazy eyes that no longer belonged to me like looking through the cutout eyes of a mask.

  The darkness no longer blinded me. I could see through the blackest shadows now, could smell everything from the mice in the walls to every person that had walked that place since its construction. The smells were overwhelming, too much to take in all at once. But my nose zeroed in on one particular scent, causing the others to fade into the background. His face flashed across my eyes. Blake. An overpowering confidence to the point of volatility engulfed me. A surging energy shot through me like I’d been shocked by lightning, only this was completely painless, invigorating even. I tried to stand, but my body remained unresponsive. I wasn’t even breathing on my own now. It was like trying to control a puppet without strings.

  {Feel’s good, doesn’t it?} the evnauts asked together, their voices perfectly timed all around me. {To feel so powerful and unstoppable is the ultimate high.}

  {Rot in hell,} I thought, my inner voice raging.

  {Oh, not just yet
. We have work to do here first,} the voices laughed in reply.

  I didn’t understand. Were they in my head? They could hear everything that went through my mind and replied to me in the same manner. I even felt their excitement. I would continue sharing their thoughts and feelings as long as we were joined like this. When I realized they could hear me, I showed them my feelings, too. I called them every foul name I could think of.

  {Now, now, human,} they nearly cooed.

  {You killed my family!} I bellowed. {Why did you do it? They never did anything to you!}

  {Don’t take it personally. It was nothing against you or them. This was all about one thing. You understand? A means to an end—}

  {I hate you! I’m going to kill you!} I cried uselessly in my head.

  {Oh, little human. Don’t be silly.}

  And everything I did from this point on was out of my control. I gripped the hilt of the dagger in my right hand. And now they had the dagger, too. I couldn’t imagine a worse scenario than this. A floating sensation fell over me. I moved to leave the room while feeling like I weighed nothing at all. Before leaving, a cracked hanging mirror on my right caught my eye. Movement in its reflection drew my eyes instantly, the reflection completely unrecognizable—so much so that I thought another person was in the room with me. My hair fell over one side of my face, straightened in oily strands. Like Blake’s had been, my eyes were two-toned—one red and white, the other red and yellow. A dusky blue color coated my skin, and the veins at the inside of my elbows and neck were dark, raised like black motionless worms under the flesh. My mouth parted to reveal several long fangs in both rows of teeth.

  {It suits you,} the voices echoed in my head. {You see, you belong to us now.}

  “Blake!” the evnauts used my own voice to frantically call for him.

  I exploded on the inside. {Stop!} I screamed among many other words.

  “Blake, help! Please!” I was forced to call.

  {Shut up!} I cried out in my head.

  {Don’t worry, little human. You'll enjoy this. We’ll see to that,} the evnauts taunted me. {We'll make sure you don't feel any sadness when we kill him and spare you of those silly mortal feelings. Instead, you’ll only feel the thrill of taking a life.}