Rise of Midnight

by SARA FREITES

  When my eyes cleared, my first sight was that of a human girl. One of her delicate little hands spread across the broad chest of a young man she lay upon, her head resting atop his collarbone. He lay motionless in a shallow pond of his blood. Unable to detect his scent, I studied him. His wounds were extensive. Although his eyes remained open, I couldn’t hear his heartbeat. Thunder rumbled overhead.

  My memory blossomed ever so vivid now. Even with her face hidden by her whitened hair, I knew who this girl was—the human I’d chosen to become a part of, the one I’d chosen to aid me. Her heart beat faintly, coming and going. Her vampire transformation had halted upon my arrival. Right now, I carried the two souls she’d carried since birth—her human soul, and the halved soul that I called my own years ago. This meant she and I could not both exist at the same moment in time. Soulless for the time being, she’d remain human, in a suspended state as long as I existed there, dark magic running through her body to sustain her as it had for me. I could see it, a vibrant red in her veins as it pulsated, timed with her heartbeat.

  Images began blazing through my mind—names and faces of people I’d never met, places I’d never visited, followed by a sudden familiarization of them all. And then, I understood what I was seeing. These were Autumn’s memories. Along with them came the realization that the young man with her was the evnaut. Arlos’ son. The hundreds of beings whose scent I’d picked up on, they were the half-vampire, half-human beings Arlos had a hand in creating—the havidens. Arlos had succeeded in producing an army of them.

  The scent of someone I knew from long ago caused the images to flee. A prickling sensation spread in my nose. With another presence in the room, I became aware of my indecency. Thankfully, all I’d need for this spell to work was a lock of hair.

  “Cacher.” I seized a long white wave of my hand while whispering the spell with haste.

  The lock of hair grew over my shoulder and down my body, stretching across me. It darkened in color. A lengthy lavender lace took its place as it extended from my hair. It detached from the lock and stretched tight across me. The material hugged my waist, belling out from there, and the sleeves grew to my elbows, long and flowy. I was the same dress I’d worn the night of my demise.

  What better to wear for this night? I thought.

  From my right, a figure moved. It was as if I’d seen him yesterday. If I possessed a heart of my own, it would have beat ragingly inside of me. The pleasant contours of his face, the way he smiled out of one corner of his mouth brought back all the memories we shared together. Those tender, human feelings rushed back, sweeping over me like a warm wave. Arlos was an old friend as well as a lover.

  But then, those feelings quickly faded as I remembered the way he’d later treated me, what he’d done, betraying my race all those years ago. A strong hatred rose up from deep inside. Every inch of me wanted to rip him apart, but I tried to remain calm. Battling against a demon would not be easy, and I needed to keep a lucid head.

  Arlos stopped in place, gazing at me as if he were seeing a ghost. In a way, he was. He drew his eyebrows low, together over his eyes. Behind him, large roots laced with twinkling crimson crevices, inferno roots, had grown up the walls. They encased us there like an oversized arena. This demonic hold Arlos had placed on the room also left a fog the color of an orchid floating just atop the floor, and it swirled around my feet when I spun to face him.

  His eyes narrowed into glowing slits. His bloodstained hands, very inhuman, clutch the hilt of a weapon. I’d never before seen the sister daggers this way—a large, blackened sword. Autumn’s memories told me this was the result of their unity, the Blood Claymore. It was what I would need to send him back to hell.

  “You really did come for me,” Arlos mused, his French still just as well-spoken as the day I met him.

  “Why are you so surprised to see me?” I asked mordantly. “I told you I’d come for you.”

  “Latresma,” he muttered, his voice full of resentment. “I have to be honest. I almost didn’t believe you’d—”

  “Let you get away with what you did to me?” I cut him off. “You underestimated me as you always have.”

  His stormy eyes grew intense before he swept them away from me. “Come,” he beckoned, his gaze resting upon the claymore. “See what I have here.”

  I felt as if he were trying to do the same as I, trying to stall the inevitable fight, perhaps finally seeing me as a formidable opponent.

  “It’s beautiful,” he gushed, “and will be even more so once I use it to tear a hole from this dimension to the next.”

  “It cannot do that without being cursed to,” I informed him.

  “I know this,” he said. “Since the human wouldn’t cooperate, perhaps this could be your time…be part of something amazing. I could show you all of the things I used to tell you about—”

  “Still set in your ways, I see,” I replied. “If I didn’t want anything to do with you the last time I saw you, what makes you think I’d want anything to do with you now?”

  “Oh, Latresma.” He smiled. “How I have missed hearing that lovely voice of yours. You know, I thought that maybe I’d try again to persuade you. But then, I realized after all this time I’d used the wrong tactics.” He flipped the dagger once in his hand. “This might persuade you.”

  “And still making threats?” I asked him. “Arlos, anything you have to say or do will only convince me even further of your madness.”

  He laughed. “Such words! You never used to speak to me in such a way. I don’t understand what changed. You just left one night. I was heartbroken. Do you remember how we used to lay in bed for hours by the fireplace in our little cabin, how we talked so sweetly to one another? What about the nights we flew over the city after your hunts while you told me all about your life as a young human? I think about those moments all the time. I remember a time long ago when you cared for me. You loved me.”

  I cringed at the thought. “Funny how you only mention the small parts of our relationship that were pleasant and act as though your behavior otherwise is null and void. Those happy moments were few and far between. You treated me like shit outside of that. It was never truly love for either of us. Whatever shallow feelings I had for you died long ago with the hex you put on me.”

  “I honestly didn’t believe I’d see you tonight,” he admitted, disregarding what I said. “But perhaps, a part of me hoped to lay eyes on you one last time. It was worth getting a little blood on my hands for.” He glanced at the girl and the evnaut.

  “I don’t care to hear your twisted manner of flattery,” I sneered.

  His scrutinizing eyes traced over me. A sound of disapproval escaped his throat. His eyes shown a fiery red now as I’d seen them do numerous times while he called upon his demonic powers. Pointing to me, he moved his finger across the air. The shoulder of my dress snapped at the seam. Quickly, I pulled myself from Arlos’ telekinetic hold and placed my hand over the rip.

  “That stuffy, seventeenth-century attire never did suite you,” he said. “Why don’t you take it off for me the way you used to?”

  His hand moved again. This time, the petticoat crumbled and fell away from the bottom, thinning out the belled shape of the dress and causing it to lay flat against my form. Fabric ripped from either side of my dress, leaving my left leg exposed. He had no idea that would be the extent of what his powers could do to me.

  “Ah. Looks better already,” he sneered.

  “You’re disgusting. I know how you must see me,” I challenged and stepped out of the pile of lace and silk on the floor. “Weak. Defenseless. A naive little girl. You knew I was an easy target. You saw my vulnerability and took advantage of it. I blame myself for what happened, as well. I was lonely, world-weary when I met you. I had no idea where I stood in my life. You met me at my weakest. However, I wasn't always that person. I was chosen to reign in as queen of the Vampire Nation for a reason, a position I would have taken if it hadn’t been for you.”

/>   “Then I’d love for the opportunity to see what it was the vampires saw in you back then”—he smirked, his eyes outlining my form again—“to put my hands on you one last time. But I’d also love to show you how silly that little claim you made to me that night really is. What was it you said? That you’d return as a human to rid the world of me?”

  “That night didn’t end the way this one will,” I warned.

  “How presumptuous. You are only here right now because I’ve allowed you to be!” he shouted.

  “You’d love to claim my existence, wouldn’t you?” I shot back. “Everything is about you, isn’t it?”

  He dropped the claymore. His body expanded in every direction. Before I could understand what was happening, my eyes took in something I couldn’t believe. It stood freakishly upright in a massive dog-like form, its head almost touching the ceiling. A low, rumbling roar escaped its throat and shook the floor beneath my feet. Although his appearance was not that of the man I remembered, I knew he was still Arlos. A hellhound—the canine demon of the underworld…a high-level one, at that. Only at the gates of hell alongside Arlos’ claimed-to-be-father Cerberus, the three-headed dog-demon who guards the gates of hell, would anyone ever encounter a hellhound of this astronomical size. Before this, I’d only seen them in demonic drawings.

  I whispered a spell and felt my bones contract. The spell that would transform me into a feline-like sentinel was one I’d created for enjoyment. Never had I conceive battling in it. There, I stood as the guardian, as I called it, and I released a blood-curdling roar. Arlos bared his fangs at me in response. A rumble vibrated within his chest as he leaned down to stand on all fours. At the same time, I eyed the Blood Claymore. It sat on the floor far behind him. I couldn’t let on that I was going for it or he’d undoubtedly reach it before I could. I had no intention of allowing this fight to last any longer than it had to. All I had to do was curse the claymore and drive it into his body…

  His enlarged being moved in on me, all the while slashing through the air with his claws. I dodged. He spun, his triple-bladed tail swiping overhead. A red aura ignited deep within his eye sockets. As I ran, my legs became entangled in something ridged. I tripped over it but recovered on the spot. My eyes trailed the length of several inferno roots sprouting from the floor. I’d broken in half the ones I’d stumbled over. More grew under my paws. I shredded them as Arlos looked on. I’m sure he’d hoped they’d stop me in place, but those things had no power over me now.

  I flitted away when Arlos’ muzzle snapped at the air around me. His paw made contact with me then, and all I could feel against my skin were his massive claws. At first, I flailed around in pain after my body hit the ground. The ruby glow returned in his eye sockets as he attempted using his powers on me—I’m not certain which ability, as nothing happened. But the expression on his wolf-like face altered slightly, telling me he began to realize they were useless against me.

  He dove in on me. I pivoted away as wings expanded from my shoulders. I leapt, pumping my wings fiercely and sailing through the air. My claws raked across his muzzle with no success in penetrating his flesh. I circled around and dove, this time biting into his shoulder. The taste of his pungent flesh had me nearly vomiting, and still, I couldn’t injure him. His claws slashed at me again. When I hit the floor, I scrambled for the claymore. He relentlessly pursued. My left paw swiped at its hilt, but my clumsy attempt to grab it sent the dagger spinning across the floorboards away from me.

  I felt an immense blow from my right side. It happened so fast that as I rolled countless times, I couldn’t be sure of what happened. Soon, I came to rest on my side. I searched about, disoriented, to find Arlos galloping toward me. I was on my feet again. Inferno roots multiplied across the ground. I flew over them toward the claymore once more. This time, my paws landed directly on its handle. I bounded over the floor several times, evading Arlos’ attacks with the dagger clutched in a coiled arm. I could feel the blade’s heat even through my thick fur, and I had to take care not to cut myself with it. I dropped the dagger at my paws, ready to end this. Arlos froze in place. His eye sockets illuminated as he tried to use his demonic powers on me once more. However, just as before, I wasn’t stricken by them.

  “I don’t understand,” he snarled in a low, raspy voice to himself.

  The darkness of his eye sockets returned. My eyes focused on the blade, pushing away any other thoughts that attempted to seep their way in. I set my paw on its leather handle. My tongue glided across my canines. I tasted blood. My body shrank and shriveled down to my vampire body within seconds. My forming hand wrapped around the blade of the claymore. It burned like a hot iron. I held back a scream as smoke rose from the wound that the blade seared into my palm.

  Trying to ignore the pain, I whispered an incantation, “Défendre contre les demons.”

  It was all that needed to be done. As my vampire senses came to me, I felt the dagger vibrate in my hand. The burning pain in my palm subsided. I snatched my blistered hand away and opened my eyes to a radiant light emerging from the tip, outlining the claymore’s black blade. It didn’t surprise me when the new burn on my hand failed to heal. I stared after it and the claymore simultaneously while its light faded.

  Arlos sprang forward. I gathered the dagger and bounced across the floor. When he landed, his eye sockets beamed red once again, and again his demonic powers failed. Even in his true hellhound body, I could see the frustration on his face. I jumped, slashing at him with the dagger while he stood there, visibly confused. I jumped from his body to the floor over and over. Each slice I made in his flesh bled. Though they didn’t heal, they didn’t seem to faze him.

  There was only one way to be sure my cursing the claymore had worked. According to Autumn’s memories of her encounter with Rosetta, I knew I needed to drive the dagger into the core of his body to send him back to hell, but catching the demon by surprise long enough to have a chance to do this would prove to be a difficult task.

  Arlos went for me. I dodged him and swung the claymore out. The blade ran through the flesh and bone of his wrist and out of the other side. This completely severed his paw. Finally, a critical blow. His gnarled, dismembered paw hit the ground and caught fire in a blue blaze. It surprised me at first as Arlos roared in pain and blundered away.

  I waited a minute too long as I watched the severed paw burn up into nothingness. Another paw blasted again my back. It sent me across the room. The blade of the claymore brushed against my skin just as I caught myself and made it to my feet. Surprisingly, its touch didn’t burn my skin this time. I gripped the blade to be sure, and again, nothing happened. No pain, no searing burn. I was sure now the spell had worked. Or at least, I was sure the curse that had once gripped it, the one that gave it its ability to kill vampires, had been overridden.

  Arlos’ jaw dropped at the sight of the seared nub that was his wrist. “Why won’t it heal?” he roared. “You little bitch. What have you done to me?”

  I moved in on him as fast as I could, but his long tail knocked me out of the air. I hit the ground. He didn’t realize it yet, but I had severed another part of his body. Half of his tail and his left forearm fell in flames, disintegrating. Enraged, he galloped toward me on three legs. I dove in. Time slowed for me as I aimed the dagger precisely, holding the hilt as tightly to me as possible. As he sailed through the air, he tried to catch me in his remaining front paw. The crimson in his eye sockets was there again. I swung the claymore once more. The blade sliced through his elbow. This sent his forearm out of my way and left me a clear shot of his face. With both hands, I held the dagger over my head. I drove the blade into the side of his head at his temple. The only thing keeping me from driving it deeper was the claymore’s cross-guard.

  Standing firm, I felt an immense pressure on the claymore as Arlos fell into me. The weight of the impact sent my bare feet digging into the floor, the floorboards popping up and snapping all around me. Arlos came to rest just over me. Neither one o
f us moved for what felt like forever as the purple mist swirled around our legs like a silently disturbed pond. Breaking the stillness of the room, he laughed a quiet laugh that only grew louder.

  With the claymore re-cursed, its blade unmistakably penetrating his body, I felt I’d missed something. I began to worry Rosetta had been wrong in the information she’d given Autumn about her father’s daggers.

  Arlos brought his massive head down, nearly nose to nose with me. I could smell the blood in his muzzle as he spoke, his voice distorted. “You cannot kill me with that silly thing!”

  His devilish smile spread across his partially skinned muzzle. But then, it faded. He groaned when the wound around the blade began searing his flesh. He tore away from me, all the while shrieking hellishly and thrashing about. He plucked the claymore from his head and threw it at my feet. His massive body reared up on its hind legs. With his black blood spilling onto the floor and splashing against the wall of roots around him, he flailed about while holding his head. The sounds he made pierced my ears as he screeched and howled. And then, he started toward me. I kept my place, taking hold of the claymore and readying it once more until he was so close I could feel the cold from his body. My hands tightened around the leather hilt, but I soon realized the claymore would no longer be needed.

  When his titanic being hit the ground, his scaly nose propelled into my stomach. I fell to one side as his head settled in my lap. If I had been human, just the sheer weight of his skull would have broken every bone in my legs. His claws stretched toward me. They ripped holes in my dress at my waist. And then, he stopped moving. Cautious, I sat up. His eerie glare, a cloudy eye that crept up from the depths of his eye socket, sent chills all over my skin. He bared his fangs, growling deeply, and it shook me from within.