Darklight 2: Darkthirst

by Forrest, Bella

  Laini leaned down to her bill, pressing her hand firmly into the feathers, her eyes narrowed and brows sharply slanted.

  “What’s going on?” I asked. Could this day get any worse?

  “They’re freaking out,” she mumbled. “I don’t know why. I’m just going to try to get them to land here.”

  The flock balked for a moment, but under her clucking and coaxing the bills eventually tilted into a descent. They cried out as they hit the ground. I held tightly to Laini’s bird to keep from being knocked off by the rough landing. The redbills leaned down, clacking their beaks impatiently. I dismounted quickly, as did the others. Laini watched with wide, shocked eyes as the redbills took off into the trees, not bothering to flap and waddle around the ground or preen for a while like normal.

  “I don’t know why they’re acting like this,” Laini said. “I’ve never seen this behavior before.” She paused, her eyes going distant as she seemed to focus on something beyond our conversation. “I don’t sense anything else nearby. Well, nothing that seems too out of the ordinary… nothing that couldn’t be explained…” She trailed off again, a look of puzzlement passing her face.

  “Nothing seems wrong,” Roxy said, but she looked warily around the clearing we’d set down in.

  I couldn’t help but feel unsettled as well. The redbills weren’t usually skittish. What we could see of the mine looked peaceful enough, but by now I knew there were things vampires and redbills could sense that my own five senses couldn’t.

  Still, until we knew for sure, it was probably best to try to get to safety. We cautiously made our way through the snow toward the secret entrance, all of us on high alert for something, anything out of the ordinary.

  It came just as the ski resort rose into view through the trees: a tremor beneath our feet that made everyone freeze. What could possibly be making the ground shake out here? A cave-in? Or…? Bryce put his finger to his lips as we exchanged worried glances. I strained to listen.

  Another rumble shook the area. Not from behind us, or even from the tunnels I knew were below, but farther out, within the forest that skirted the resort. Probably not a cave-in, then. My stomach knotted in suspense as wild explanations flew through my head. A few moments later, the sound of raised voices reached us. Shouting and cries—I knew the sounds of battle. Had the Bureau found us?

  Zach, who had gotten off the redbill farthest forward, was closer to the sound, and now I watched with trepidation as he pushed forward despite his leg. He grunted as he inched toward the noise, which grew louder. I made to follow him, not liking our injured party being closest to a possible battle, but Laini threw her arm out in front of the rest of us, abruptly halting my movement. Her face twitched with shock as if she sensed something. I used the pause to turn and watch the forest for threats from behind us. If we couldn’t go forward, at least we could cover our backs.

  Zach’s shout broke into our stillness. “Everyone, get over here now!”

  I didn’t need any more prompting. Laini relented, and I ran with Roxy, Gina, and Bryce to where Zach stood pointing into a forest clearing.

  It wasn’t the Bureau that had found us. This time, it was something else entirely.

  Chapter Sixteen

  A couple of hundred yards beyond Zach, who stood on a slight ridge looking down into a clearing, a thick black mist curled between the trees. The sinister mass radiated evil. Its height rivaled some of the trees, and it shifted and swayed slowly across the land, obscuring the forest at its thickest parts. I swallowed my terrified gasp, uncertain what I was looking at but sure it wasn’t something that wanted to give us all warm hugs.

  I picked out the vampire scouting team scattered across the area, shouting to each other: Bravi, Arlonne, and Rhome. Rhome and Arlonne faced the mist in fighting stances, their backs to me. How were they going to fight mist?

  Bravi’s head jerked in our direction, though Rhome and Arlonne kept their attention pinned to the creature. “Stay back!”

  As we watched, Arlonne moved slowly toward the inky presence, her hand out as if to placate it the way the vampires did the redbills, and I saw it move for the first time. But when she got close, the swirling cloud billowed toward her with a motion like a wave rising in the sea, the blackness thinning as it expanded all at once, changing shape almost quicker than I could see. The part nearest to Arlonne reformed into dense, twisting tendrils that lashed out toward her, trying to scoop her toward it like a cat toying with a mouse. This wasn’t just some kind of weird weather. The mist… the creature… clearly had a mind of its own.

  Arlonne seemed to think better of approaching it. She leapt back, dodging out of the way of its grab, but she barely made it in time. I felt myself gaping a little. The mist matched her speed with ease. The trailing tendrils caught the side of her hair as she whirled away, and it sizzled on contact. A wisp of smoke rose up, and a moment later, I could smell the awful scent of burning hair. Did the thing always do that when it touched a vampire? Would it be the same for us humans?

  Nearby, Bravi hovered over a redbill, probably one from their mission, attempting to contain it. It shrieked and gurgled, flapping and hobbling as if to escape, but one of its wings looked singed and deformed, and it failed to make it into the air. Had it been wounded by the mist creature?

  The redbill’s squawking movements drew the attention of the swirling mist. Turning away from Arlonne, the monster seethed forward in Bravi’s direction, flattening low to the ground and flowing at a rapid pace as it closed the distance between them.

  “Hey! Over here!” Rhome dashed across the field, zigzagging as if to distract the mist with his movements. The mist paused for a moment, then changed direction to flow toward Rhome, drawn by the motion.

  Bravi stood still, her hand clamped over the tip of the redbill’s beak as she calmed it. I watched it hobble silently backward, its burnt wing making it wobble as it walked, gurgling in terror like a draining sink.

  The mist sensed the movement, pausing in its pursuit of Rhome and rolling toward Bravi and the redbill, changing shape again from a flattened vapor to a rolling wave about head height. She looked at the nearby redbill, then dodged in the other direction, behind a thick collection of trees.

  On the other side of the clearing near the secret entrance to the mine, a swift movement caught my eye as Dorian emerged from the trees. From here, it was hard to see, but I could read determination, but also exhaustion, in his stance. He was still inhumanly graceful, but by now I could pick out his individual movements, the way his normal fluidity flagged now and then, but he persisted despite it.

  An exasperated sound left me. Had he come out to help in this condition? Couldn’t he stay out of one fight? Dorian! You are supposed to be resting!

  As much as I wanted to either greet him or tell him to keep out of this, I didn’t call out, not wanting to distract the vampires or draw the creature’s attention toward us when I didn’t even know what the hell this thing was.

  There was nothing in my vocabulary or understanding of the world that accounted for a… living mist. Something that scared redbills and moved with a speed that could match a vampire? Was this what the news reports had been referring to when they described strange attacks? Even in the coffee shop, it had been clear to me that all the unnatural occurrences had cropped up around the Canyonlands near the tear. In all likelihood this was the Immortal Plane at work.

  None of which helped solve the most important question: How were we supposed to fight something that couldn’t be touched?

  Zach stared at me and lifted his hands, obviously thinking along the same lines and irritated by our powerlessness. If three vampires were struggling, how were we supposed to help? Bryce balled his hands into fists, scanning the scene in frustration. Four capable soldiers and we could only watch as an evil shadow tried to flash-fry our vampire friends. It swirled and snapped at any movement the vampires made, reforming itself to face them from any direction. The three vampire scouts took turns getting its
attention, distracting it from one another, but there wasn’t much tactic beyond that. Even the vampires couldn’t keep this up forever.

  Fantastic. A game of tag you can’t win with a mysterious creature made of burning fog. It would make a great concept for a cheap horror B-movie.

  Bravi stopped some fifty feet from the mist, her shoulders tense and fists curled in anger. As she looked briefly toward us again, the inky darkness surged across the distance between them, swelling and covering ground lightning fast. In the moment it took Bravi to look back, and before I could cry out a warning, it was almost upon her. Rhome, dashing toward her and calling her name, snatched her quickly out of harm’s way. As he leapt, pulling her with him, the darkness caught a trailing corner of Rhome’s cloak. The fabric crackled with strange arcing green electricity, then went up in smoke, disintegrating as Rhome batted it out a few moments later. Whatever powers the mist monster had, it was charged with energy that could do some serious damage.

  “It’s only attacking when they get close,” I observed. It moved as if for the sole purpose of eliminating threats that neared its strange form. How could that help us? How did it sense them? Their voices? The stirring of the air? The vampires didn’t seem to have a plan to defeat it and were just stalling; I wondered how long they’d been fighting it. Maybe it was slowly exhausting their energy, waiting for them to grow fatigued before it consumed them. The thought shot dread and anger through me, and I murmured quietly to my team gathered around me, “We have to brainstorm. Figure out its weakness.”

  Most of the team responded wordlessly, their eyes focused. Bryce nodded, then shook his head as he contemplated the battlefield.

  The vampires in the clearing backed slowly away, spread out around the woods facing the monster. Dorian was the farthest from me, but I kept my eye on him. Arlonne said something to her companions I couldn’t catch, darting out as soon as Bravi and Rhome retreated. The mist turned on her, then Rhome darted at it from the other side, and it seemed to pause before shooting out a dense, inky black tendril in his direction. If they’d been testing whether it could look in all directions at once, the answer seemed to be yes. It was as if it could sense their every movement, matching their steps.

  As the misty appendage lashed out toward Rhome, Bravi charged. She’d picked up a fallen branch that was easily six feet long, and as she ran, she plunged it through the mist at its thinnest part, avoiding touching it herself. Sparks flew out from the branch as the mass thickened around it, clinging to it as Bravi dragged it away, straining as though the mist held her back with a physical force. By the time she got fifteen feet away, the branch was fried to a crisp, disintegrating in her hands. Bravi dropped it hastily. The tendril that had consumed it disconnected from the main body of mist, extended farther and farther, then seemed to lose momentum. After a moment, it thinned from black to gray before dispersing.

  Was this going to have to be their strategy—whacking away at a vicious blob of shadows like a deranged piñata? It would have been funny, absurd even, if I thought we had any chance of defeating the thing.

  Bravi grinned, but her victory was short-lived. The mist quickly grew another tendril, the same green electricity crackling through it. The limb made a snapping motion at Bravi, and I heard a wet pop like water being poured on a campfire. Was it taunting her? Did it have the cognitive capability to mock?

  Bravi’s face fell in disappointment, but I thought she might be onto something. The mist that dispersed hadn’t returned to the main body. If they kept at it, maybe they could give it a death by a thousand cuts. At this rate, that would take a long time, but if that was the only plan, it was better than nothing. Watching Bravi and Rhome run for cover, I didn’t feel particularly optimistic.

  The mist swung around again, and Zach twisted back behind a tree. As he did so, his weaker foot came down awkwardly on a fallen branch, and he stumbled into Gina. They both stopped themselves from falling but stepped harder on the ground than we’d dared to before. As though it sensed the motion, the mist swirled and edged closer toward us. Arlonne threw a pinecone at it, and it reeled back around, flaring out toward her.

  “Get out of here,” Rhome cried, his attention on us for a moment. “It’s too fast for us. You won’t stand a chance.”

  At the far end of the clearing, I noticed Dorian on the move. He reached for a tree next to him and ripped off a large, thick branch as easily as if he were tearing a piece of paper out of a notebook, the move stunningly impressive even through my worry. Branch over his shoulder, he took careful, creeping steps toward the monster.

  “We can help!” I shouted back, not sure whether the noxious fog could hear us. It hadn’t seemed to so far. “We’re thinking of a way to beat it!”

  Arlonne danced out of the way of a tendril that pushed her toward us, her tone acid. “You know nothing about it or where it came from!”

  Bravi replied as if to counter Arlonne, leaping a little closer to the base of the little ridge my group stood upon. “It’s not that we don’t trust you guys, but it’s just too dangerous!”

  All of the vampires but Dorian were in between us and the bulk of the vapor now, whether by accident or because they were trying to protect us. As Bravi and Arlonne got closer to our group, the mist stopped in the center of the clearing, swaying back and forth like kelp in an ocean current, like it was trying to figure out its next move.

  A wave of dreadful anticipation passed through my body. If the mist had eyes, at least we could have seen where it was looking. Instead, it operated like one giant, vaporous nervous system.

  You can’t really cut it. It looks and moves like a gas. What is a gas’s weakness?

  Dorian’s voice came from the other side of the clearing, distant but clear, interrupting the argument with a voice full of resolve. “Everyone get a branch. If we can all cut it off at once, it may have less energy to regroup.”

  “It’s so big, I don’t know if that’ll work,” Bravi said, and I almost seconded that but was immediately distracted.

  Maybe it could hear us after all because the mist went very still for a moment, then it rose six feet off the forest floor, clumping up at head height before surging in a tidal rush across the clearing and up the little rise we stood on, toward the three vampires… and us.

  Rhome looked at the group of us and shouted, “Run!” just as Dorian shouted, “Now!” at his companions. Our group scattered, and I ran sideways, watching as Dorian took off across the clearing with lightning speed, rushing the mist. He held the huge branch above him like a club as he charged along the side of the mist monster, swiping at it without touching it himself. The wave of darkness was already almost upon us, and Rhome and Bravi grabbed branches of their own to attack it when, in a sudden lurch, it changed direction, billowed up like a gathering wave, and crashed down onto Dorian.

  I saw Dorian, just for a second, twitch in exhaustion, and that split second was too long. I covered my mouth, turning from my flight in horror. For a moment, he disappeared beneath a cloud of blackness, but then the branch cut through the dense, inky shadows. Dorian’s haggard face emerged as he fought his way through, swirling and yanking the branch from within the cloud, arcs of green current crackling around him.

  If he’d meant to keep the mist fully distracted and away from us, it had worked—but how long could he hold out?

  Dorian bared his fangs as he tried to escape the mist. I could see his determined face flashing on the edge of escape, only to be swallowed by the blackness. Arlonne hurled what must’ve been a twenty-pound stone at the monster, briefly cutting through the mist. Dorian stumbled back with a wounded groan, momentarily freed. Rhome darted in and snatched him up by the shoulders, yanking him out of the way, but the creature was hot on their heels.

  I rushed forward, determined to help. Dorian was risking his life while his body was in such a vulnerable state. I’m not about to watch him get eaten alive by mist. Branches were no good. Vampires weren’t fast enough. We needed something else, a
nd we had to figure it out fast.

  What did you do to get rid of gas…? Burn it…?

  As I ran forward, Arlonne stepped in my path, running up the hill toward us as the other vampires darted back and forth just down the hill, dangerously close to swiping tendrils of inky fog. Her copper eyes met mine.

  “We need to try—” I began, at the same time that she demanded, “Fire.”

  I turned and yelled back into my scattered group. “We need a lighter!” I didn’t have one, but somebody had to. “Now!”

  Beyond us, the monster had partially surrounded Dorian and Rhome again. Dorian let out a strangled cry, sinking to his knees. My worry spiked at the sound. We’re out of options. This has to work.

  “I’ve got one,” Bryce yelled and threw a lighter overhand to Arlonne. She took a half-step back, using her stump to balance herself, and caught the lighter expertly with her one hand. She blinked at the device for only a moment before flicking it to produce a flame and whirling down to race toward the mist monster. I hung back, searching frantically for backup plans in case this one went wrong.

  What will that tiny lighter be able to do?

  I stood at the crest of the hill. Everything seemed to happen in slow motion. Arlonne ran with the lighter straight up to the cloud, thrusting her hand up against it as a swirling tendril reached out as though to embrace her from behind. I gasped as I heard the crack of the flame meeting the gas. And then…

  The mist exploded into a roaring column of fire. Not green electricity, but healthy, ordinary orange flame. I winced and covered my eyes as the force of the explosion flung pieces of dirt and debris toward us, most of it landing in the trees. Arlonne! Had she been caught in the blast?

  I rubbed my eyes with my arm and blinked through the dissipating smoke. Arlonne stood proudly near the explosion site, the tops of her springy curls smoking lightly. She looked back up the hill at Bryce, nodding in thanks. Roxy crossed her arms and raised her eyebrows, an impressed smirk playing on her lips. I was already halfway down the slope, my feet taking me toward Dorian without input from my brain.