“Guess my earlier attempts to kiss some HQ ass backfired. Hell… I’m a free agent!” Brandon shot back, his eyes burning a furious blue. “Just because you took Hammer from me doesn’t mean you own me.”
“Then for Hammer’s sake, you should stop interfering with my business. Unless you care to join me, like before these meat bags arrived,” Haldor warned him, which must’ve been a credible threat because it angered Brandon even more. But a deep breath later, he had a different response.
“You know what will happen if you destroy Hammer, yet you’re not in a rush to do it. That tells me something. Listen, Haldor… I don’t care how she dragged you into this, you giant oaf, but when Order finds out, you’ll be—”
“Shut your mouth!” Haldor snarled, finally revealing his true form beneath the black smoke. His muscles were enormous. His biceps were the size of watermelons, but they were nothing compared to his massive chest. The Berserker was huge and built thick like a redwood. He inspired plenty of fear just like this, without cloaking himself in darkness. “And stay back while I kill these little worms,” he told Brandon.
“Yeah, sorry, I can’t let you do that,” Brandon replied, appearing to regret it already. “I kind of like these creatures. They’re very resilient.”
“Ah, but I haven’t given them a real taste of my force yet,” Haldor said, sneering at us.
I lit up pink from the inside, allowing the energy to flow out of me like fire. I channeled my deepest senses, fueled by anger and the desperate desire to survive and find the truth. We’d come so far. We’d almost rescued our friends, too. I’d found my mom, and I planned to get her back to The Shade safely. But a giant Berserker with an army of shadow hounds stood between us and salvation.
The clones weren’t far behind them. I could hear their boots rumbling on the ground not too far from the clearing. It was time to unleash the Daughter within, and without mercy. Haldor didn’t plan to let me live, so why should I hold back? This was a fight to the death.
“Things are about to get bloody,” Thayen whispered, gently depositing Richard close to my mom. “I’ll try glamoring Haldor, but I need you and Jericho to weaken him first.”
I nodded once, my heart skipping beats. Brandon narrowed his eyes at us. I wondered if he’d heard. Haldor certainly hadn’t, since he proceeded to snap his fingers. The shadow hounds all pounced at once, converging on us. I cried out and shone as bright as I could, summoning the light from within. Jericho grunted as he cast a circle of fire around us.
Haldor laughed and lashed his whip at the flames, breaking the fiery ring here and there. Shadow beasts made it through, forcing Soph and Dafne to try firing their pulverizer weapons at them. The pellets were swallowed by their dark forms without impact.
“Crap,” Thayen breathed.
“Now, Thayen!” I shouted, beads of sweat dripping down my face as I forced myself to shine even brighter. Following my lead, Jericho pushed as much fire out as he could, constantly feeding the flames that spread to the nearest redwoods and ate away at the massive trunks.
Thayen breathed out as he extended a hand toward Haldor, who was now walking toward us, determined to finish this. The fire wasn’t enough to hold him back, and neither was my light. The atmosphere of this place had worn us out. We were no longer as strong as earlier. I could feel my energy levels dropping slowly. It was only a matter of time before the enemy would prevail, unless…
“What did I just tell you about glamoring a Berserker?” Brandon sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose as he watched Thayen reach out to Haldor with his spirit bending ability.
“Either keep your trap shut or help out,” I replied, almost out of breath.
Haldor stilled, looking surprised. Thayen had poked him in the soul, quite literally. His shadow hounds were prowling around us, however, and getting dangerously closer to me and my mom. Richard, pour soul, could no longer stand.
“There we go,” Thayen murmured, his hand constricting into a tight fist. “I’ve got you.”
The giant Berserker smiled and said, “You think?” Thayen coughed, and blood burst from his nose.
“Oh, no,” I breathed.
“Told you…” Brandon muttered, still standing to the side and doing nothing.
I couldn’t look away from Thayen. Jericho was struggling, Dafne was injured, and Soph was barely hanging on as the shadow hounds grew closer and snappier with every second that passed. The circle of fire was weakening, and my light was slowly fading, too.
“You cannot handle the spirit of a Berserker, you fool,” Haldor told Thayen, who refused to let go. The more the giant moved toward him, the harder it got for Thayen to hold on. Blood streamed from his nose and ears, and the color drained from his cheeks. Another minute, and he would pass out.
“Thayen, let him go!” I shouted, fearful for his life.
Something poked me in the back. I turned my head and found… Myst standing behind me, her magnificent sword pressed against my hip. “Myst, what are you—”
“Shut up and touch the blade. Give me all the light you can spare,” she whispered.
I didn’t hesitate. Thayen would die unless we did something, and fast. I had a feeling Myst might be the game changer we needed. Brandon spotted her as she charged her sword with my light. He gave her a faint nod, then slowly produced two weapons of his own—long knives made of black steel. The blades were slender like needles. I imagined they delivered lethal damage if handled properly, and Brandon struck me as the kind of fighter who was never short on confidence.
Even so, why had he waited until now to draw his weapons? Had he been waiting for Myst to appear?
“Are you a Berserker, too?” I mumbled.
Myst scoffed. “I’m much better,” she replied, drawing a scowl from Brandon.
Haldor had been so busy laughing in Thayen’s face that he didn’t see Myst until it was too late. She moved away from me and raised her sword. “Valysium!” she shouted, and the light of a true sun exploded from the blade. My own energy came out in rays of white light, spreading across the clearing and reducing the shadow hounds to terrified wisps.
I caught a glimpse of Brandon as he jumped Haldor. Thayen collapsed. Dafne and Soph reached him first and dragged him away as the Berserkers fought one another, both weakened by the light from Myst’s sword. But Brandon didn’t stop. He hacked and slashed at Haldor, relentless and determined to take the giant down, while the hounds whimpered and withdrew beyond the redwoods.
I took advantage of this brief moment to shake my mom once more. If anyone could zap us out of here, it was her. She had the abilities I’d been lacking. Finally, her eyes peeled open, and the faded purple in her irises scared me. “Mom! Oh, Mom… please, wake up!” I cried out.
We were an absolute mess. I heard the clangs of blades clashing against Haldor’s armored forearm. The Berserker lashed out with his whip, and the black tongue curled around Myst’s throat. He yanked back while Brandon struggled to cut him again. Myst yelped and fell. Her sword remained alight, though its glow was quickly fading.
“Mom, wake up,” I said, slapping her gently, then harder until she was fully awake. “You need to get us out of here… Now!”
She blinked rapidly as she quickly took in her surroundings and realized where she was. I doubted she understood much about what had happened and how she’d gotten there, but it didn’t really matter. She could do something. Her gaze darkened for a moment. “I… Astra, the runes on my arms,” Mom said. “One of them is stopping me from zapping us out of here…”
“Which one?” I asked, raising my voice. Exasperation was getting the better of me.
“The circle!” Myst cried out, wrestling with Haldor’s whip. “Break the circle!”
“I always said Valkyries were a major pest!” the giant snarled, pulling her closer. Brandon tried to stab him in the side, but Haldor bounced back and kicked him in the chest. This particular Berserker was downright impossible to take down.
Ignoring what he
’d just said about Valkyries, I focused on the circle Myst had mentioned. I found it on my mother’s left forearm. As the light from the sword began to fade, the shadow hounds were returning, twice as big and hungry. I scratched the circle with my nail, deep enough to break the skin. Blood bloomed in a scarlet pearl, but I had done it.
“Quick,” Mom said. “Link yourselves to me.”
She was shaking like a leaf, yet she still found the strength to do this. I grabbed Richard’s arm with one hand and Soph’s shoulder. She had Dafne, and Dafne had Jericho. The fae dragon had Thayen. Around us, hell itself was coming undone. Brandon barely managed to get up. He cut through Haldor’s whip and released Myst.
The Valkyrie scrambled back to her feet and dashed across the clearing to recover her weapon. The clones were coming from all directions, and we were about to get swallowed by the swarm of snarling shadow hounds.
Mom gripped me by the back of the neck and exhaled sharply. I caught a glimpse of Haldor shouting and hurtling toward us, his whip slithering through the air, but I couldn’t hear him anymore.
I saw Brandon’s fiery blue eyes widening. Myst smiling with cool satisfaction. And then the void engulfed us. We were darkness. We were nothing. We were particles in the wind until we reappeared on the edge of the fake island’s own Sun Beach, under a curved palm tree.
“Hot damn, that was close!” Jericho managed, his uniform drenched with sweat.
Close, but not close enough. By some miracle, we’d made it.
We’d survived yet another nightmare.
Astra
Minutes poured away in a strange silence as we gradually came to and became fully aware of our surroundings. My mom was with us. She was safe. I threw my arms around her and showered her with kisses, crying from sheer happiness. “You’re okay,” I mumbled. “You’re okay. Thank the stars, you’re okay…”
“I wouldn’t be if it weren’t for you, sweetheart,” she replied, pressing her lips to my forehead and putting all the love she had into this one kiss. My heart sang with relief at knowing my mother was alive and well and back with me.
“I should’ve told you to take us to the Black Heights,” I said.
“I’ll take us there soon enough. But let us just breathe for a moment,” Mom replied, blinking slowly.
We needed a while to sort ourselves out. Mom was still groggy, but she pulled herself together and helped me heal Thayen. Jericho tended to Dafne’s wounds, and Soph aided Richard with vitamins and healing potions to clear his bloodstream of whatever tranquilizer they’d injected him with.
The Sun Beach didn’t really have a sun. It was just more of that same dull white light, albeit brighter than the rest of the fake Shade. It made the ocean shore look like a bathroom fixture under a white neon bulb. Dull. Lifeless. But it didn’t matter. We were alive. We’d survived Haldor once again.
“How are you feeling?” I asked Thayen.
“Better,” he mumbled. “Got my ass handed to me.”
“We’re all in over our heads,” Mom said. “Don’t let that giant oaf discourage you. Just getting me out of there was one hell of an accomplishment. They were holding me to get you,” she told me with a pained expression. “The runes on my arms are impeding my powers, but I know they can’t simply be broken. The symbols must be cut in a certain order, otherwise it will never work.”
Thayen frowned as he looked at her forearms. “What is that? Death magic?”
“Nah. They called it something else,” Richard said. “My memories of that place are hazy, though. They didn’t let us hear much, but I know they’ve got some powerful magic they’re working with. Only they’re still trying to figure out how to make it all work in this living realm.”
Mom nodded. “Yes. I remember that. The magic they have is fit for another world, beyond the living and the dead. One of the clones let that slip after I woke up and found myself practically helpless.”
“This is all kinds of insane,” Soph murmured. “How on earth will we get Isabelle and the others out? Brandon said he was trying to help, but he blew it for us, big time.”
“I haven’t seen him before,” Mom replied. “Not while I was awake, anyway. They kept sedating us, only allowing us to stay awake to eat and drink water, for the most part.”
“Did they do anything else to you? Or you, Richard?” I asked.
I’d already tested his soul. I knew it was him, and boy, was I glad to see him. Thayen had brightened up a bit, too, finally reunited with his best friend. The wolf shook his head slowly, frowning as he tried to remember. “You know, I’m trying to think back on my stay there, and it’s all just a giant confusing fuzzball. I’m not sure. I don’t think they did anything to me, but I can’t say with absolute certainty, either.”
“What matters is we’re okay,” Mom assured him with a warm smile. But the light faded from her eyes as she brought up the others. “We have to get Isabelle out of there. Voss and Chantal, as well. But Isabelle is important. She’s been there the longest, and they never woke her when we were up. They never fed her at the same time as the rest of us. The clones went to great lengths to stop her from communicating with us. It means something.”
All roads kept leading back to Isabelle. It had started with her. I had a feeling, deep down, that it might end with her too, though I wasn’t sure what that would mean. It was just my instincts sorting through future possibilities and distant probabilities.
“How are you guys holding up?” I asked, looking at Jericho and Dafne.
“My fires are weak. I need to sleep,” the fae dragon said.
Dafne nodded in agreement. “This place really is sucking the life out of us, isn’t it?”
“I’d snooze for a week,” Soph grumbled, leaning against the palm tree as she sank her fingers into the warm, golden sand. “Or a month.”
Mom sighed deeply. “It’s definitely this place. It’s in its design, I mean. It feeds off the living. The clones have set sleeping hours. They’re useless and brainless, otherwise. And I mean that quite literally. They simply don’t think properly unless they sleep.”
“Gah, there is so much we still don’t know about this place,” Thayen said.
“We’ll figure it out,” I replied, then gave Mom an apologetic frown. “And we’ll figure out how to break the runes on your arms. Myst helped us with the circle symbol. Maybe she can help us with the others, too.”
“I’d need the scheme of the spell first,” the Valkyrie said, emerging from the cluster of palm trees behind us.
Thayen jumped to his feet, instantly angered. The rest of our group froze, carefully eyeing her as she moved toward the beach. There were bruises around her neck, black as ink, from where Haldor’s whip had held her.
“The scheme?” I asked.
“A set of runes like those would require a scheme. It would be written somewhere, otherwise the spellcaster would forget the order in which they were set.”
“Then how’d you know to break the circle one for teleportation?” I replied.
“It was luck, more or less. Long story short, the circle rune is always broken first. Depending on the creature or entity upon which the spell was cast, an ability will be released with the broken circle rune. I presume that in Viola’s case teleportation was sorely needed, and the spell may have simply reacted to that. Everything else, however, must follow its scheme. Our magic is highly reactive,” Myst said, then looked at Thayen. “I see now that I should not have left you.”
“Oh, really?” Thayen replied dryly, crossing his arms. After what we’d just endured, his curiosity had turned into something more bristly. He was annoyed, much like the rest of us. In the end, our safety and survival trumped everything else, and it felt nice to see Thayen standing up for us.
It seemed as though both he and I had had strange encounters with even stranger beings. Thayen had Myst, while I had Brandon. For a moment, I wondered where these journeys of ours would end. One thing was indisputable, though—whatever we’d waded into here was
only just beginning.
“I’m not used to working with others. Especially your kind. I’ve never had dealings with your kind before,” Myst sighed, holding his gaze.
“By ‘my kind,’ you mean the living,” Thayen replied. “I take it you’re made of the same cloth as Brandon, more or less. He identified himself as a Berserker of the afterlife. What are you, then? Apart from your eyes and shady ethics, there’s not much else I see you have in common.” Oh, he was definitely annoyed. She’d come to us like a beacon of light, yet she had obvious faults. These attempts at distancing herself from us had upset him, leading to a considerable shift in his demeanor. Deep down, it made me ache a little. I didn’t like my friends and family suffering, even in the slightest.
“A Valkyrie,” I interjected, and it made Myst’s strange eyes grow wider. “I heard Haldor. It didn’t take long to put two and two together. Sort of.”
She sighed deeply. “You weren’t supposed to know about us. Then again, this whole place wasn’t supposed to exist, so I guess… I guess the confusion and this awful mess was inevitable.” She sat on the sand, crossing her legs. “I might as well tell you a few things. I’d hate for you to be stubborn enough to use your glamor on me,” Myst added, giving Thayen a stern look.
“Where is Brandon?” I asked, the adrenaline finally wearing off. I didn’t want to relax, but I couldn’t help it. My body was tired. It demanded a break. Yet even now, I wondered about the Berserker who’d played us, ruining our mission—but who had also brought my mother back to me.
Myst shrugged. “I don’t know. As soon as you left, I got out of there. Took me longer than I’d hoped, but I found you first. I’ve been following you since the Port. Just so you know, I’m pretty sure they’ve moved your friends from there after your visit.”
“Do you know where they are?”
A Shade of Vampire 89: A Sanctuary of Foes Page 20