by Brandon Witt
My nerves spiked at the sight of all of them together, and I looked over at the vine-covered walls formed by the mountain. Even in the night, butterflies flitted over the flowering plants. Another rumble of thunder sounded in the distance. This time closer, though maybe it was only the reverberating sound in the tubelike room that made it seem that way.
“Thank you for joining us.”
Gwala’s voice brought my gaze back to the vampire crowd. I wasn’t sure how I’d missed him when we’d entered. He was front and center, ever so subtly clothed in a lavish robe. The violet fabric stopped midthigh, but the sleeves fell to the golden floor, wide slits revealing his thin arms within.
I nodded in forced reverence. “Thank you for having us, Your Majesty. And thank you, once more, for helping Schwint heal.”
As if just noticing him, Gwala looked at Schwint. “All better?”
Schwint nodded as well, making more of a bow than I, despite his injured leg. “Yes, I am most grateful.”
Without further acknowledgement, Gwala turned back to me and motioned across the room, sweeping the countless vampires with the gesture. “We are here to honor the new queen. And you, Warlock Finn de Morisco.”
Blood chilled in my veins. There could be no good to come from such a production as this. I forced my eyes to travel over the crowd, doing my best to not look afraid or aggressive—as if I could pull that off even if I wanted to. On my second pass through the crowd, I found Sonia directly behind Gwala. I hadn’t recognized her at first—she was dressed in finery equal to Gwala’s, her red silk dress plunging nearly to her navel, the train of her skirt flowing across the floor, forcing an area of separation between her and the other vampires, lest they step on the queen’s gown. She was otherworldly gorgeous, yet the look didn’t suit her, and, though her face let no emotion escape, I got the sense she was nearly as uncomfortable as I was. Of course, my unease was the feeling that Schwint or I was in danger, or one of my sisters. Hers was probably due to wanting to be in hooker boots, short skirt, and a tank top. Hardly the same thing.
“Come, come.” Gwala made another sweeping motion, and with it the horde of vampires parted, with only Sonia staying stationary. “Take your seats at your feast. Tonight, you are officially named The Warlock of the Vampire Cathedral. There is no higher honor that can be bestowed.”
As the vampires moved to make a path for us to the table, opening the view of the feast, I had to bite my lip to keep from crying out. Even so, a whimper escaped from deep in my chest. In the stillness of the room, I had no doubt everyone had heard it. Schwint slipped his hand into mine, offering strength and maybe even hoping to receive some in return.
Although a massive amount of food was spread out on the table, it was not to the exorbitant level of the only other meal we’d had in the dining chamber. Many of the spear-like spikes rising from the table were completely void of food. However, the two making up the middle section were smeared with blood from their tips, and it traveled down their widening girths to the naked body impaled at their bases.
Even if I hadn’t seen his defining features, I would have known whom to expect. Omar’s lifeless form lay upon the table, arms folded as if in a casket, hands clasped around the spike emerging from his upper torso instead of a funeral bouquet. The second spike surged from his lower abdomen, right above his groin. His legs rested on either side of the next spike farther down.
Neither Schwint nor I moved. We just stared down the hallway of vampire bodies that led to the table. As we stared, a butterfly flitted across the path, making its way across the room. I couldn’t make out its color, nor did I try, only shuddered as it deviated from its original course and veered toward the feast spread out on the table. It touched down delicately on fruit that overflowed from a large crystal bowl. A roll of thunder filled the room once more, and the insect lifted off again, then found its rest beside a pool of blood that was growing from beneath Omar’s torso.
Gwala stepped toward us. “Let us dine before the creatures devour our banquet before we are given the chance.”
Even at his command, I couldn’t force my body to move. I’d hated the warlock, but this was beyond anything I’d ever wished upon him, especially after the notion that he might have been like me when the whole thing started.
I saw my future lying on that table. Sometime, in five years or a thousand, there would be a witch Gwala wanted more than me. At that point, I too would be nectar for butterflies.
I felt Schwint nudge me, and I stepped forward automatically. After the first movement, conscious control took over once more. I wouldn’t do Omar or anyone else any good by making a stand here. He was already dead, and I had too much to lose.
Within ten strides, we’d passed through the vampires and arrived at the head of the long table. Moving a little past it, I made to sit down, but Gwala’s voice filled the room. “No, warlock. As I said, this night is partially about you. Have the seat across from the queen. Veronica!”
The vampire servant appeared at my side as if by magic and took me by the elbow. She led Schwint and me completely around the table, putting us on display. I kept my eyes averted from the dead warlock’s body, as well as the vampires watching us, instead trying to identify food items spread at random intervals. When that didn’t work, I looked up though the jagged opening of the roof, getting lost in the cloud-filled night sky.
When I felt Veronica pause, I slipped my legs over the bench and sat down. I felt Schwint do the same beside me to my left. He sat so close our thighs pressed together, and my shoulder found its place slightly in front of his.
“Royals, please find your seat.” At his words, a flurry of fabric erupted throughout the room as vampires filled in the perimeter of the table. A body brushed my right side, but I didn’t look to see which vampire sat by me.
After the bustle died down, Gwala spoke again, this time his voice directly across from me. “We honor you, Warlock Finn. May you bring honor and power to your rise in position.” No other sound. No voiced agreements. No clank of raised glasses. Only the growing whisper of wind as it swept into the room.
I forced my head up to look the vampire king in the face. Before I got that far, another face met mine. We’d been placed directly in the middle of the table, and Omar’s profile lay between the king and myself. Unwilled, my hand squeezed harder on Schwint’s fingers beneath the table. I thought I felt him squeeze back, but I wasn’t sure.
A movement across the table caught my attention, and I saw that Sonia was seated next to Gwala. She’d pulled her hair back behind her shoulders. Hazily, I saw the mass of non-Royal vampires encircling the table.
Try as I might to keep my gaze fixed on her, my attention shifted automatically toward Omar.
Other than the two massive spikes protruding from his body, there seemed to be no other harm done to him. In fact, he looked better than I’d ever seen him. He was clean, his skin healthy in the soft light of the room.
With another loud rumble, thunder filled the dining area. Small warm drops of rain began to fall.
As the droplets beat lightly against Omar’s face, his head turned in my direction, as if trying to avoid direct contact with the rain. His bloodshot eyes opened and looked directly at me.
I let out a cry and flinched backward, my hold on Schwint the only thing that kept me from falling off the bench.
Omar’s mouth opened slowly, the motion jerky and halting. The expression his face held made it seem he was going to speak, but his mouth closed once more, no sound uttered.
I stared in complete horror at the man I’d hated so much. My brain could not fathom that he was alive. It was impossible. Even as I stared at him, the rain increased, hitting his face harder. Splashing into the ever-growing blood pooling from his body, making countless red splatters over the golden surface of the table and my plate.
Gwala’s blood. It had to have been. While it hadn’t changed the warlock into a vampire, it must have provided him with an amount of immortality to survive
such a fate.
I continued to stare into his eyes.
Schwint whispered something, and I felt him pull at my hand, but I couldn’t make sense of whatever he said.
Without more sounding thunder, the clouds turned loose, rain instantly shifting from gentle drips to a torrent, drenching my body and spreading Omar’s blood as surely as if a bucket of water had been dashed upon the surface of the table.
Omar blinked rapidly, trying to keep the water from his eyes.
Even Gwala’s invitation for the Royals to feed couldn’t force me to look away from the one who’d caused me to be captured. The vampires that fell upon his body, sinking their teeth into his newly cleaned skin, didn’t cause me to break contact with his now rolling eyes.
Ultimately, it was Sonia’s black curtain of hair falling over Omar’s face as she bit into his neck that released his hold on me.
Twenty-Three
BRETT WRIGHT
Lelas curved in closer to Nalu’s body, pulling his arm tighter over her as she slept. In response, his tail slipped over hers, causing the kelp that wrapped around them to rip slightly at the strain. Still, they slept on.
“I didn’t think it was possible for Lelas to be happier than she already was.”
Wrell imparted a warm feeling in response.
Continuing to watch them, a faint sense of jealousy crept up. After seeing them together all these weeks, it was simple to shove it aside. Actually, it wasn’t an unpleasant sensation. It only increased my happiness for her. If anyone deserved to be truly happy, it was Lelas. Plus, I only needed to remind myself that I was the one who screwed up my own chance at such a relationship. My own fault, nobody else’s.
Maybe saying it wasn’t an unpleasant sensation wasn’t entirely true.
While I couldn’t claim to have approved of such an instantaneous relationship, neither could I argue with the fact they were both over-the-moon happy. Granted, honeymoon phase and all, sure. Still, it didn’t take long watching them together to realize real magic was at work in the whole “mating” thing. They were at ease with each other more than most old married people I’d known.
I’d even grown to like Nalu. He was quiet, never complained, and was entirely focused on making Lelas happy. I had to fall in love with the guy for caring for my best friend so well.
I peered over at Wrell, who was gazing up at the light pouring through the kelp forest, silhouetted fish darting between the towering stalks. I couldn’t blame him. I never got tired of its soft, diffused glow. Hawaii was exotic and gorgeous, but I’d begun to count the kelp forests as a new sort of home. It was nice to be back to someplace more familiar. “Should we wake them?”
Without looking over at me, he shook his head.
Since Wrell wasn’t paying direct attention to me anyway, I didn’t see the harm in choosing to look at him instead of my sleeping best friend and her mate. I chose not to ponder which act was creepier. Not that Wrell seemed to mind. He’d caught me captivated by him countless times by this point. I was certain he was aware of my attraction to him, maybe even that I was starting to have genuine feelings for him. He neither reveled nor preened in the attention, like I’d seen some human straight men do, nor did he seem offended. Like most things, my desire for him seemed to fall in his live-and-let-live category.
As much as I knew I’d never act on it, or even could, I hated that my feelings for him were deepening. He’d become a good friend through this experience, and I didn’t want to mess that up. Try as I might, I couldn’t suffocate what continued to build inside me. Whatever I was feeling, it couldn’t be qualified as love. Not yet. And that was the problem. The only reason it wasn’t full-blown love and infatuation was my determination to build a wall around my heart as far as he was concerned. However, it was just a matter of time. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do then. Especially if the five of us were still traveling around in search of the missing mers.
“The two of you had a good catch this morning.”
Quickly, I looked away, hoping Therin hadn’t noticed me staring. He had, of course. They were all aware of how I felt about Wrell. Even Nalu. Only Lelas spoke of it with me. Thankfully.
I’d expected Therin to give me a lecture about my inappropriate feelings weeks ago. Remind me of my promise to Syleen. So far, he hadn’t. It seemed we really had turned a corner in our relationship.
My gaze traveled to the thirty or so herring Wrell and I had caught this morning. They were skewered on four spears embedded in the ground near where I sat. “Yeah, we got lucky. A whole school of them was passing through on the far side of the forest. We didn’t even have to go very far.”
Therin closed the distance between and curled up by the morning’s catch. His brilliant golden tail made the herring look even more depressing by comparison. “You should have woken me.”
“We decided to let you all sleep. Both of us were up anyway.” It was a true enough statement, even if I’d been the one to suggest it. I didn’t feel the need to confess time alone with Wrell was more my motivation than Therin’s sleep deprivation.
Dad was gracious enough not to point out that our pace had slowed the past two or three days, or that I’d been scheduled to be the one sleeping in.
“It’s good to see her so happy.”
I followed his gaze to look at Lelas and Nalu again. “Yeah, but she’s always been happy.”
Therin smiled, his expression fatherly. “That is true. There is deeper contentment than I have seen before. She glows brighter than she did previously.”
It was a good way to put it.
A vision of the Chromis tribe entered my mind—Syleen, Zef, and Greylin front and center, the rest of the family muted in the background.
Therin and I both turned to look at Wrell, who had exited from his trance and was swimming toward us. His feathery quills shifted the kelp away as they beat the water slowly.
“Less than two days journey, I would imagine. If they are close to where we left them.”
Wrell nodded in agreement.
I rarely misunderstood Wrell’s intentions anymore, at times even able to predict his thoughts before he imparted them. “We’re really that close to them? Maybe we should pick up the pace, so Zef doesn’t intercept us.”
Therin shook his head slightly, but even at the small motion, his moonlight-colored hair clouded around him. “Even if he did, we now have enough confirmation from the Scarus to justify continuing onward. The fact that they are having members of their tribe taken in such a similar manner is proof enough. Zef could not fail to see their involvement. In addition to their loss, if Akamaii’s view of history is to be believed, the tribe was not only a part of the bargain but would have access to the vampires. If the information has been passed down, they will have knowledge of where the vampires are located. At least where they were long ago, which is more than we have currently.”
Every once in a while, Therin would make a statement that made it seem he didn’t trust what Akamaii had told us. However, he hadn’t completely said as much, which led me to believe that it was more wishful thinking as opposed to genuine skepticism.
Lelas was the only one who had argued the fact after we had left the Scarus territory. It had taken a couple of days for Nalu to convince her that his queen wouldn’t lie, and, despite her edict that he was now banished from his tribe, that she was trustworthy and fair.
I couldn’t blame Dad and Lelas for struggling with the concept. Talk about having your whole world changed. And to find out your longevity was paid for with the lives of others wouldn’t be something you could just accept and continue on as if nothing had happened.
Only Wrell had seemed initially satisfied with Akamaii’s explanation. That wasn’t a surprise to me either. His own life had taught him how cruel others of his kind could be.
“Well, if we’re so close to them, and we have enough proof, why don’t we have them join us? Sure, it might slow us down as we try to find the Volitans. You think they’re close by, b
ut those rumors were from before we even left the Chromis tribe. Who knows where they are now. What’s the rush?”
What’s the rush—had I really just said that? Mers being taken and never seen again? Nah, no biggie, might as well take our time.
Both Wrell and Therin shook their heads adamantly.
“Wrell believes we will make more progress on our own.” Therin gestured at his friend before motioning back to himself. “And if I am being honest, something at the core of me tells me to stay the course—though I can come up with no rational explanation of why. Wrell is correct. Our journey is too long, with too many unknowns to risk the entire tribe. Moheetla’s creation is something that cannot be tamed, and the mers are not his only children held within his care. We are not promised protection above his other handiwork.”
“Exactly. That’s why we should start with other tribes. You know where to find the Synchi. Perhaps they know just as much as the Scarus. Why take a risk with the Volitans if we don’t have to?”
“We have been over this previously, Brett. The journey to the Synchi will take months. Based on what the Scarus queen relayed, the Synchi would have no other information than the Scarus. They were both cut off from the rest of the tribes when they refused to participate in the sacrifice. As for other tribes, it is likely they have come to know as little as we have, though we will continue to search for them if the Volitans are unable or unwilling to help. It has been thousands and thousands of years since the time Akamaii spoke of. We have waited long enough to stop the capture of our people. It is time to act. If the Volitans know where our ancestors handed over the other mers, that will give us a place to begin. The sooner we act, the more lives that may be saved. I only wish that we would be able to accompany you to where the vampires reside.” Therin looked down at his golden scales, a disgusted frown twisting his expression. “Moheetla has not seen fit to give us the ability to defend ourselves. It will be up to you, my son, when our journey leads us to land.”