by DB Nielsen
“Cole, Cooper!” Aislinn called out to them from where she was crouched on the battlements.
“Aislinn! Over here!” Cooper cried, looking up in the direction from where her voice had come. “Hurry!”
But it was Stanislav who came to their rescue as lightning hit the tower where Aislinn was perched.
Chapter 32
In the split second before the lightning hit, Aislinn saw the violet symbols growing with ferocity in the dark mage’s hands as he spun dark energy from the lifeforce of those recently slain. Then he released the spell in Aislinn’s direction just as she jumped off the battlements.
It was close.
Cooper’s cry had alerted the dark mage to her presence. But now she was going after him with vengeance in her heart.
She was still in control of her blood rage, even as a low snarl hissed through her clenched teeth. Her hand fell to her skean with its precious reminder of her sister’s life cut off in its prime. She could hear the bang of blood in her ears, a rhythmic pounding: Sorcha Sorcha Sorcha.
Aislinn didn’t pause.
Up on Bloody Tower, the Druid’s eyes were no longer shaded with the cloudy-white film of cataract but appeared to grow larger and fill with a flaming, blood-red light, as if they were windows to a hellish incinerator burning inside his soul. His fingers danced wildly in the air, crafting the spell in a violet shimmer of corrosive dark magic forged by blood.
“So, my servants have failed, as all living things must fail and be defeated by death.” His voice was like the harsh, abrasive desert winds, sandblasting the words. “We meet again. Have you come to destroy me?”
Aislinn refused to answer his taunts.
The moment hung in the balance. There was a terrible, absolute silence as the Druid continued to build his spell with elaborate gestures, holding back from releasing it.
“I think not, foolish vampire.” The dark mage’s words struck at Aislinn with physical force.
“Then get used to disappointment,” Aislinn finally said, drawing herself up.
Her skean flashed in the light cast by the ever-growing complexity of the spell. She felt the hair on the back of her neck rise, and she knew that he was completing the incantation, ready to release his dark magic into the taut night air.
The Druid laughed. It was dark and menacing, mocking her.
“So small minded. You should be thanking us. We liberated you from your fragile humanity. You are no longer that cowed, pathetic child crying for the loss of her sister. No, you are now the immortal daughter of Kayne, and his darkest blood runs through you.”
Aislinn opened her mouth to disagree as white-hot words of anger were desperate for release, but suddenly, the night sky directly behind where the dark mage was standing started to swirl like a whirlpool. Bright sparks flew from the twirling dervish, lighting the Druid inside what appeared to be an enormous spinning party sparkler, until from within, a portal appeared, and the interior of the Styx club and Thirteen’s thin smile could be seen.
Of course, should’ve known! Demon douchebags! Business is business! Gotta protect a business partner!
Aislinn gritted her teeth. This was not going to end well. When it came to protecting his own interests, Styx would have cheerfully sold seven billion souls since he didn’t have one of his own.
She was up shit creek, and she knew it. “Vlad!”
The Druid spoke arcane words, piercing her ears with a sudden, sharp ache as he released the spell. Lightning arced directly above their heads, gathering power. An explosive eruption of raw elements sizzled and sparked, preparing to surge forth.
Magic flashed above the Bloody Tower in violet sparks, accompanied by bursts of actinic static. She could feel it in the marrow of her bones, unexpectedly scorching, and screamed with sudden pain.
Fuck! It hurt!
“I admire your tenacity, daughter of Kayne, so I shall offer you this: the return of your sister in exchange for your blood,” the dark mage said, his voice little more than a low thrum but still harsh and penetrating. “Even Kayne cannot give you what I can. The dark practice of necromancy is hidden to all but those few who are willing to seek such a prize. Think of it. Your sister.”
Each word struck her sharply like pebbles, like bullets. Her entire body felt paralyzed. Frozen, inside and out, by trickery, lies, deceit, and foul magecraft. She was held by a powerful force she couldn’t even begin to comprehend with words that stirred a tempest of emotions.
Shocked, bitter, raging, she gasped and closed her eyes.
An insidious hope bloomed.
A temptation.
The dark desire lodged itself, taking root.
The Druid’s burning eyes, lit from within, narrowed knowingly. “What say you, daughter of Kayne—”
His words were cut off. There was a terrifying scream.
Aislinn’s eyes flew open, and her whole body shuddered at the dreadful noise. The night was rent in two by a savage, strident sound that ran the length of the Thames, from end to end. The bloodcurdling cry seemed to go on and on. And it was only then that Aislinn realized that the wild, frightful shriek had come from the Druid in front of her who toppled backward into the portal.
She saw him falling as if in slow motion.
An arrow protruded from the dark mage’s chest where it had been shot from a crossbow and pierced living flesh.
And in that same moment, a spell cast as bright as the sun, the ultraviolet light flared in his fingertips and then flashed outward as the dark mage released the full force of his spell against his aggressor.
Cooper!
It was meant for her. It should have been for her.
Even as this truth flew into her head, Aislinn reflexively responded. Her lithe body moved instantaneously, too fast to follow. She glided through the air, arm and skean extended straight, and took the full force of the spell racing toward her youngest Darkling.
“Aislinn!” Five voices rang out at the same time as a single bell very slowly striking the one note, tolling her name in the death knell of night. From below, the others were shocked into stunned silence.
Skean collided with spell.
An ear-splitting screech silenced everything else. The voices shouting her name instantly drowned out. The blade caught and reflected the spell in an intensity of white-violet sparks that cascaded upward into the ashen cloudbank which brooded over the Bloody Tower. The effect was cataclysmic.
‘Hickory Dickory dock
The mouse ran up the clock
The clock struck five
The mouse took a dive
Hickory Dickory dock'
“Aislinn!”
Lightning streaked across the sky before the cloudbank broke and purifying rain poured down in a sudden, heavy deluge, melting the clay men and cleansing the ground beneath. They disintegrated back into sodden lumps of mud and decomposing vegetation, swelling and surging before the rain liquefied them.
Mid swing, Benjamin paused and looked up and around, rain obscuring his vision. The new-fallen snow and mud turned to brown sludge, making the ground underfoot slippery. It was only due to his vampirism that he didn’t stumble and fall. He blinked like a nocturnal animal as the landscape lost definition in the rain and he spied—
“Aislinn!”
Zhenya and Caleb cried out in unison as lightning broke directly above, all thought of their bet momentarily flying out of their heads. The cataclysmic flash as dark magic rent the sky sent the hellhounds scattering and had the vampires ducking for cover nearby. It was over in moments, but there was a wrongness that lingered in the air.
All three of them stood together over the slain hellhounds, staring upward in vain.
Caleb craned his neck, blinking as the rain cut across his eyes, searching for movement on the Bloody Tower.
“Do you see her?” Varya whispered, afraid almost to ask.
“I’m not sure,” he said. He looked at the brooding night sky. “But we need to move.”
“Chyort!
I can’t smell much more than wet dog. Not even to get my bearings.” Zhenya spat and pointed to the Traitor’s Gate. “We can look for Stanislav and Aislinn from the embankment. Perhaps we will be able to see better there.”
The others nodded. They did not look back as they left what had become a bloody boneyard.
Cooper had taken careful aim and shot the arrow, watching with a deadly thrill as it struck and the Druid fell backward. But as he toppled, the dark mage unleashed his spell which flew straight to its target.
Cooper was calm as he waited.
Strangely, his last thoughts were of Cole’s terrible poem, and he wondered if he would find out what it would be like to be ‘doused by drowsy Death’.
And then—
“Aislinn!”
Even as she caught the spell, the power and force of it shattered her skean.
It was the sound of a thousand years of suffering shattering.
It was the sound of one singular, fragile dream shattering.
The skean fissured, a spiderweb of cracks radiating out from the pinpoint of raw energy where the spell had struck. It split asunder. Shards exploded in a kaleidoscope of color, surging across the rooftop.
She screamed as it struck. The white-violet sparks engulfing the hilt. Instantly, she let go.
The force of the blow hurled Aislinn from the Bloody Tower in a backlash of ultraviolet light. Airborne, she lost consciousness, unaware that the blast should have burned her to cinders. The Druid’s destructive spell spewed forth in strength and fury to consume her slim frame as she cannonballed into the Thames.
Cooper swallowed down rising bile, choking on his own fear and remorse, and exchanged a terror-stricken look with Cole.
Hope lay in the deep tidal waters of the Thames as a form of protection. Spells could be cast by the dark mages, but not even the most powerful spells could be sustained across and within deep tidal water for too long.
Aislinn came to in the instant her body hit the water. Disoriented, panicked, she floundered until adrenaline surged through her veins, and she kicked out, struggling to reach the surface as she fought against the dark waters.
Instinctively, she swam toward the bright lights which she could see sparkling and bobbing through the watery grave-like atmosphere of the Thames. Then a pale hand reached through the water, and she stretched for it. It was solid and reassuring, and it pulled her to safety. Her head broke the surface, and she looked into Benjamin’s moss-green eyes.
“Welcome back,” he said with a broad, handsome grin. “You’ve got more lives than a cat, you know?”
“It’s raining,” she observed in surprise as she stood up, not bothering to even try drying herself off.
He laughed, gazing at her sodden appearance. “I’m surprised you can tell.”
“Aislinn!” A sudden shout had her turning swiftly. Two young men jumped the wall and hurtled toward her. Before they reached her, just an arm-length away, they stopped. There was a stiff, awkward moment. Then Cole took her into a loose embrace, and Cooper kissed her lightly on the cheek.
Then suddenly, they were holding her so tightly, it was lucky she didn’t need to breathe. But in a way, she had never felt so alive.
The others swiftly arrived, witnessing the intimate scene.
It was tempting to just fall apart during this emotional reunion, but Aislinn did not. Instead, she smiled at her Darklings and said, “You two have no idea how much trouble you’re in. You both are in the dog house.” There was a brief snort from Zhenya, and Varya gave a mocking laugh at the thought of Styx’s hellhounds. Aislinn didn’t know what she was proposing, especially as she continued. “You’ll be lucky if you get out of there before your twenty-first century.”
Cooper had the decency to look shamefaced, but Cole was horrified. “But Aislinn, it wasn’t my fault! He made me do it!”
She patted him on the cheek. “Really? Did he hold a cypress stake to your heart? You’re the older brother. You should know better. We’ll talk about this later, Cole.”
Stanislav lit up a cigar, enjoying himself immensely. The feeling was contagious.
Then they all began talking over one another. Everyone had a different account of what had happened.
“And then Thirteen ordered the hellhounds to attack and—"
“That’s not quite accurate,” Varya interrupted, looking like a fierce Valkyrie. “Thirteen—seriously, I would like to know what happened to the other twelve minions before this guy. I wonder what Styx did to them and what they did to deserve it—well, anyway, Thirteen—”
Stanislav pulled Aislinn aside. “Keep the paperclip. You do not need it. I guarantee you safe passage in the Underground.”
Aislinn was surprised but was honest enough to admit, “But we may not have killed the dark mage responsible for Sergei’s death.”
The Underground Russian mafia boss laughed heartily. “Daughter of Kayne, you are still so naïve. They are all responsible. Like a blood cancer. This is not over. We may have won a battle, not the war.” She nodded as he unexpectedly pulled her into a bearhug and kissed both cheeks. “Come. Let us drink.”
In agreement, the others began slapping each other on the back and walking away down the embankment as the rain began to ease.
“Come on, Aislinn,” shouted Caleb, almost flying past her. “What are you waiting for?”
“I’ll catch you up,” she called. “There’s something I need to do first. I dropped my skean on the top of the Tower. I’m just going to go back and get it.”
He shrugged. “Do you need company?”
She shook her head. “Nah, you go ahead.”
“You’re gonna miss out on the good stuff.” Caleb gave a bark of laughter. “It’s your funeral.”
Aislinn just smiled. It did not reach her eyes.
High above on the Bloody Tower, Aislinn crouched amongst the debris. Silently and carefully, in the welter of broken shards, she picked up the skean’s burned hilt and turned it over and over in her pale, slim hands.
She felt a crushing disappointment. A wealth of pain lodged under her heart. It cut so deeply, she could feel it like a shard of ice. Freezing, burning, slicing.
The opportunity for revenge was in her hands. And she lost it.
The opportunity to have her sister back was given to her, though she didn’t know if it was the truth or a lie.
And she didn’t know if either or both opportunities were lost to her now—forever.
Turning the hilt in her palm, letting the ambient light and the rain run over it, she felt the immense loss. The bright hair belonging to Sorcha had been burned away. The blade was no more. Obliterated except for these few pieces.
That was how she felt too. Obliterated.
All that was left was empty.
Hollow.
“I’m not often wrong about things, but I’ve been informed that I’m mistaken in you.”
Aislinn gasped, startled, assuming she was all alone. Futilely grasping the hilt of her shattered skean, she looked up with wide, haunted eyes at the owner of the voice.
He indifferently sat on the edge of the ramparts, palest skin, whitest teeth flashing in a deadly, derisive grin against the darkness.
Blood rage flared through her. “Are you kidding me? What the Vlad now? Not you again!”
The End
Continue the Saga…
Black Magic, Bad Moon Rising Book 3 releases April May 1st!
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Author Note
Dear Reader,
While writing this book allowed me to reimagine vampirism, I was mindful of the need to work within a well-established universe, keeping it real for readers. As my vampires are on Earth, I created the eleven worldwide covens to give the effect of vampires living alongside the humans for millennia. I wanted them to operate below the threshold of human consciousness as the stuff of myth, as ordinary humans are unaware that vampires exist among them. But I also wanted readers to be able to involve themselves in Ais
linn’s daily existence.
London, as much as Transylvania, has long been a setting for vampires, like Dracula (and it’s a city I know and love). Many of the settings in the novel can be visited (and if you are adventurous, there are nocturnal tours, too) which means you can literally follow Aislinn’s footsteps—or you can just use your imagination.
The Red Circle takes you to new places, including the Vampire Underground, introducing you to new characters who try to assist or thwart Aislinn’s hunt for her human sister’s killers.
Thanks for joining me, and I hope you enjoy reading Aislinn’s continued quest for justice…
Dee
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About The Author
DB Nielsen was born in British Hong Kong and immigrated to Australia in childhood. See likes to travel the world with family; dividing time between residing in Sydney and visits the cathedrals, crypts and museums the world over, doing research for new projects. The author is a university lecturer in Linguistics and Semiotics and continues to teach English Literature and Language whilst writing. Dee’s passion Is for throwing elaborate dinners and themed parties (such as medieval banquets) and reading anything and everything. Dee’s dream project is to do a series of book tours in the Champagne region of France.