Desert Flame

by Nicole R. Taylor

  He sat on a chair, his ankles and wrists bound, and around him was the khaki-coloured canvas of a tent. Outside, the sounds of men and machinery clashed and banged. He must be in the EarthBore camp.

  The chair wasn’t fixed to anything, and he was about to try and break it when the tent flap swept back, letting in a bright shard of sunlight.

  A shadowy figure strode in and the canvas fell back into place, plunging the tent into shadow.

  Hardy blinked, his eyes adjusting enough to make out Darius standing before him.

  “It’s such a shame,” the vampire said, looking down at him. “You showed so much promise, Frederick. So much.”

  He pulled against the ropes, but whatever they were coated with not only hurt, but sapped his strength. “What do you want with me?”

  “You are collateral,” Darius replied, turning away. “I can’t afford any more interruptions.”

  Hardy said nothing. He looked around the tent, but it was bare. There was nothing he could use as a weapon or use to escape.

  “Your witch was putting up a barrier spell,” the vampire went on. “Next, it would’ve been an all-out attack. I can’t have that.”

  “They won’t stop fighting,” Hardy rasped. “Jo—”

  “Joseph?” Darius laughed. “You think he can kill me? He’s been following me for centuries and he still hasn’t managed it. He was a pathetic creature when I turned him, and he’s still a pathetic creature now. He was a waste.” He smirked, an evil glint sparking in his eyes. “I wonder if any of them had the guts to pull out that stake. Is he still alive? Or are they burning his corpse out the back of that tin shed they call a pub?”

  No! Hardy snarled and jerked against the ropes. It only caused his flesh to sear even more, and his expression twisted as the pain reached an almost unbearable height.

  “I put him out of his misery,” the vampire went on. “Which is what I’ll do to you once I’ve got what I want. I’ll be doing you a favour.”

  “There has to be another way,” Hardy hissed. “This can’t be the only way to open a portal.”

  “It is the only way,” he murmured. “I’ve been searching for it my entire life, but I never understood until now. A thousand years in this world and a thousand more in another.”

  Hardy stared at him. Two thousand years was more than he’d suspected, which made Darius even more dangerous than they’d anticipated. It was a suicide mission before, and now…? What was worse than that? There wasn’t even a word or concept to encompass it all.

  “I’ve heard its call and I’m inches away from finding the key to unlock it all,” Darius went on. “I will set it free, and when it breathes the air of this pathetic world once more, it will send me home.”

  It was that moment that things began to click into place. Darius had been sought out by the entity—just like Eloise had been sought out by the mountain. He was being manipulated, but how much of it was true? If he going to be rewarded or not was still up for debate.

  Hardy knew enough about what lived underneath Solace to understand it would never bargain. All it wanted was to be set free. There would be no time to open any portal because they’d be swept away. The entity was using Darius and the vampire was too blind to see.

  “It’s corrupted you; can’t you see that?” Hardy shook his head in disbelief. “It won’t help you. How can it?”

  “How can it not?” Darius knelt before him and smirked. “The creature you contained under your pathetic town exists over multiple worlds. Once I break the chains of its prison, it will be able to go where it pleases…and take me with it.”

  “No, it won’t. You’ll die with the rest of us.”

  “Let me go,” Darius said. “Then you will have this world all to yourselves.”

  “That’s not going to happen,” Hardy rasped. “To get out of this world, you have to go through a lot of people I care about and then some. I won’t let it happen.”

  “Oh, Frederick…” Darius said, his eyes darkening, “who said you had a choice?”

  Hardy was sure the Exiles would come for him, and Joseph wouldn’t give up a chance to exact his revenge on Darius. If he was trapped here, then the least he could do was try to buy them a little time.

  “Just tell me one thing,” Hardy said, trying to stall. “Why did you choose me?”

  Darius looked down at him, his eyes black and unfeeling. For a moment, Hardy thought he wouldn’t get an answer, that he’d live out the rest of his immortality never knowing, but the vampire smiled, his lips pulling into a vicious curl.

  “You’re not special, Frederick…far from it. You were a wretched whelp on the verge of death. You were a nobody. Nothing. You weren’t chosen, you were convenient.”

  The blow didn’t hit as hard as he expected, and it didn’t change anything. Frederick Marmaduke Hardy was still the same man he was thirty seconds ago. He supposed he’d always knew this would be Darius’s answer. Hearing it…well, it was just a full stop on one long, tortuous sentence.

  “If you’d given me a choice…” Hardy muttered. “If I’d understood what you wanted to turn me into, I would’ve said no.”

  Darius chuckled. “You say that now, after all this time, but you and I both know that’s a lie. The broken man I remember laying in that filthy hole would’ve done anything to get out. You would’ve said yes.”

  Hardy shook his head. “You think you know everything, but you’re wrong. I didn’t want to leave.”

  “Not even to go back to your family?”

  “No, not even that.”

  The vampire snarled, shot forwards, and grasped Hardy’s head.

  As they stared at one another with unmasked hatred, Hardy realised that Darius thought he’d saved him. That he’d given him a gift. That’s why the vampire was so beaten out of shape when he’d escaped.

  Darius did care about something, but it wasn’t Hardy. It was his legacy.

  “Then you’re just as delusional as all of them,” the vampire snarled…then twisted.

  Darius emerged from the tent wiping his bloodied hands on his handkerchief. It was a tad old-fashioned to carry the little square of fabric around, but he’d never seemed to have let go of the habit. Besides, they were useful in these kinds of situations.

  A man wearing a dusty high-vis EarthBore uniform walked up, seeing straight through the blood. He tipped the edge of his hardhat and said, “The machinery is ready to go.”

  “Good. How far do you estimate it will blast?”

  “Another dozen metres, I reckon.”

  Darius pondered the figures. One blast wasn’t enough, but he had enough power to get to the depth…and by sunset, he’d have the key in his hands.

  “Our guest?” the man asked, looking towards the tent.

  “He won’t be bothering anyone,” Darius said. “I will deal with him this evening. Tell the men to steer clear of the tent until then.”

  The man nodded and scurried away, the compulsion Darius had woven in his mind driving him to his next task.

  He approached the edge of the pit and tucked his handkerchief into his trouser pocket. What had begun with a small core drill had now expanded into a ditch twenty metres wide. The EarthBore employees had constructed a ramp so the excavator could get in and out, then reversed the truck with the Caldwell drill down so they could drive farther into the iron ore. It was slow going, but they were nearing the key.

  He stood at the lip of the hole and looked down. A brushed silver orb hovered at the bottom, lazily rotating counter-clockwise.

  It was too bad Frederick and his band of outcasts had spoiled his plans. Darius hadn’t wished to use the orb, but push had come to shove. Truthfully, he was eager to see what it could do.

  A thousand years had brought him to his moment.

  Once, Darius couldn’t have even imagined such an expanse of time, but now that he’d lived almost twice as long? It seemed like it was all over in a blink of an eye.

  He would never forget the day he was sent to t
his place, a world that was so like his own, but not.

  He’d been fighting with the Saxons against the Danes during their second invasion of England in the eleventh century—an event which had transpired in both places but had ended much differently in each. Here, the Saxons won, defeating the Norwegian king Harald Sigurdsson outside of the city of York. In Darius’s world, the Danes prevailed.

  Vampires played their own roles within the chaos, using the instability to further their own agendas. They fought one another, factions splitting between the new breed of demons and those loyal to their bloodlines. Darius was one of the latter, but in defeat…many had died. Many he’d cared about.

  He hissed at the memory of the Viking witches and their blóði fjölkyngi—blood magic. Sacrificing everyone and everything to their so-called gods and playing with ancient power they didn’t understand. The coven had torn him apart, spilled his blood over their sigils, and sent him into the void.

  Did they know he would arrive here? He’d had a long time to dwell on it, and he’d concluded that no, no they didn’t.

  Darius had not only survived their punishment, but he thrived. There was no guarantee his enemies—vampire or witch—still lived in whatever new world they’d created, but go back he would.

  The orb’s humming sounded like triumphant music, a herald for his imminent homecoming. A reckoning was approaching, and Darius would deliver justice where it was deserved.

  The compelled man had returned while he was lost in thought and lingered just outside his field of vision.

  “Activate the device,” Darius commanded. “It’s time to end this.”

  Chapter 22

  The rugged outback scrub parted as Eloise and Kyne made their way home.

  Her heart was heavy, not only with the revelations of the entity underneath Solace, the Old One—but Andante’s story. The life the druidess had left behind, the fate of her people and the pact they’d made, her niece’s sacrifice, and her regret over not stepping up when it counted.

  Eloise had hoped their fight with Darius and the seal was Andante’s chance for closure and to make up for her regret, but she’d chosen to remain in her cave. As she and Kyne reached the town limits, she wondered if asking the old woman to help was a little selfish on their behalf. Their fight wasn’t anything like the battles the Druids had faced. The Exiles were just a bunch of random supernaturals, why would she?

  She sighed as they left the scrub. The boab tree loomed before them and she looked at Kyne, realising they’d passed into town without smacking into the invisible barrier Vera had been working on.

  The air felt like it always did—hot and dusty—and there was no sign of any magic…not even a tingle.

  “I thought there was supposed to be a barrier,” Eloise said. “I can’t feel anything…” She paused. “Hang on, am I supposed to feel something?”

  “We shouldn’t have been able to walk back into Solace, if that’s what you mean,” Kyne replied, his brow furrowed. “Vera should be here to let us back in.”

  Now that he mentioned it, Eloise thought it was a little too quiet. Solace was usually a tumbleweed kind of place, but it felt as if the intensity had been turned all the way up. Maybe it was the weight of all the things they’d learned from Andante, or perhaps it was the looming threat of Darius. She shook her head, wondering if it was just her mind playing tricks on her. It wasn’t every day that people learned their town was built on top of a multi-dimensional spirit-like thing that was probably as old as the universe itself.

  The thought of it conjured an image of the tentacled darkness living inside of the black mountain and she shivered.

  “Something’s not right,” Eloise said. “I don’t know if I’m just creeped out or…”

  “I feel it, too,” Kyne said, looking up at the boab. “If the spell went wrong, the others will be waiting at the pub.”

  Something had gone wrong. Darius had come back and this time, he’d drawn blood. She felt it in the air. Her skin prickled and her head turned towards the highway. “Oh no.”

  “Don’t jump ahead of yourself,” Kyne told her. “Not just yet.”

  They hurried along the track behind the Outpost, keeping away from the highway in case it was being watched. Darting across the side road, they slipped around the back of the opal shop, then into the yard at the rear of Blue’s pub where they skirted the building to the front.

  Kyne rattled the door, but it was stuck. He thumped his fist on it. “Hello? Anyone there?”

  “You didn’t say knock, knock,” Finn’s muffled voice came from within the pub.

  “Just open the door,” Eloise called out, shifting her weight from foot-to-foot.

  The air shimmered, splintering with shards of steely blue magic as the door opened and Vera appeared.

  “We were getting worried about you two,” she said, letting them inside.

  “What happened to the barrier?” Kyne asked. “Why is it only on the pub?”

  Eloise was the first to step inside and she jerked to a halt.

  Joseph and Drew were covered in dried blood, a broken chair was pushed into the corner, the glass-fronted fridges behind the bar were shattered, and all the tables were up against the walls. It must’ve been one hell of a spell.

  “What happened?” Eloise asked, her gaze moving to a mop and bucket propped against the bar. The whole pub smelled like cheap pine lime disinfectant. She scanned the room and didn’t spot Hardy. “Where’s Hardy?”

  “Darius paid us a visit before I could finish the spell,” Vera said glumly. “He gave Drew a nasty concussion, staked Joseph, ruined my barrier…and took Hardy hostage.”

  A twist of fear wrung at Eloise’s heart at the thought of Hardy being back in the clutches of the vampire who had ruined him. They had to get him back.

  “Staked Joseph?” Kyne narrowed his eyes at the vampire, who was seated at the bar.

  “Your little witch pulled it out before I kicked the actual bucket.”

  “What?” Kyne exclaimed.

  “I’m fine, thanks for asking,” Joseph drawled. “Did your old cavewoman give you any answers? Because I’d like to go up there right now, tear Darius apart, and get my friend back.”

  “Depends on what kind of answers you were hoping for,” Kyne said with a grimace.

  “Bloody hell, here we go,” Drew muttered. “At least the old bat exists.”

  Eloise hung back as Kyne told them about the Old Ones. Hearing it all again made her head spin, and at least eighty-five percent of it sounded completely bonkers.

  Everyone stared at them in stunned silence until Finn leapt up onto a chair and declared, “Hands up who thought it was a person and not a tentacle monster!”

  The Exiles and Joseph all thrust their hands into the air.

  Kyne frowned at Vera. “You’ve seen it and you still thought it was a person?”

  The witch shrugged. “There’s some real whacked ghosts out there, just saying.”

  “So, your old woman was a bust,” Joseph said. “I hate to say I told you so, but—”

  “We learned some valuable information,” Eloise snapped, her anxiety getting the best of her. They were talking about the Old Ones when they should be devising a plan to rescue Hardy. “It may not help us beat Darius, but we understand exactly what’s at stake now.”

  “Do you?” the vampire asked. “Because it all seems a bit la-di-da to me.”

  “I wouldn’t count Andante out just yet,” Kyne said.

  Eloise turned. “What makes you say that?”

  “I pressed all her buttons. Hopefully one of them worked.”

  “It’s nice that we know about these Old Ones and all,” Vera said, “but it doesn’t help us right now.”

  “You’re right. Nothing’s changed.” The miner sighed and turned to the Exiles. “The mission is still the same. Protect the seal at all costs.”

  “And Hardy?” Wally asked. “We can’t just leave him there.”

  “We’ll get him back,”
Kyne said, looking at Joseph.

  The vampire narrowed his eyes. “Now can we do things my way?”

  “What do yo—”

  BOOM!

  The ground shook and glass bottles clattered behind the bar, sending the Exiles reeling. Eloise almost jumped underneath the table, but she clutched Kyne’s arm instead, her eyes widening.

  “What in the blue blazes was that?” Blue exclaimed.

  “Darius…” Vera said. “He’s blasting.”

  “Blasting with what?” Drew exclaimed. “A nuclear bomb?”

  Finn coughed and put up his hand. “Fae trickery, that is.”

  Eloise gasped as she saw the droplets of blood on the fae’s palm. “Finn?”

  “That’s one of those magic trinkets Darius has dug up, I reckon,” he said with a shrug. “If I’m feeling it, the others are for sure. Siora’s going to be mad.”

  “What others?” Joseph demanded.

  “The other fae,” Finn told him with a shrug. “They don’t get out much.”

  “This town is the gift that keeps on giving,” the vampire drawled.

  Kyne placed his hand on Vera’s shoulder. “I don’t know what’s going to happen out there, but you might be our last line of defence. Can you put a barrier around the seal?”

  The witch nodded. “I can, but I’m not sure how effective it’ll be.”

  “Anything is better than nothing,” he murmured.

  “I’ll stay with you,” Drew said. “I’ll shift and keep watch.”

  Blue picked up his shotgun. “I ain’t no match for vampires and fae explosives, so I’ll cover you, Vera.”

  Wally nodded his agreement. “Another vote for this old dog sticking with the town.”

  Kyne turned to Eloise.

  “No way,” she said, crossing her arms. “I’m coming with you to get Hardy. I won’t argue about it, so keep your trap shut, Kyne Brady, and let’s go already.”

  Finn sniggered and backed towards the door. “You heard the little desert pea. Let’s get this show on the road before I get blown to bits. Blue’s already running low on disinfectant.”