by Ana Calin
Showers of ice wash over me. He’s bluffing, he must be, provoking me to choose between him and Rux. Forcing me to make an impossible decision.
“You’re lying,” I say through my teeth.
“She came with her best friend, the seductress. Geneva has the seductress right now, while your wife—” He grins in his monster form, relishing this. “She’s on the flipside. I sent her there until I’m done with you, and I can deal with her. I have a number of talents, you see, one of them inherited from my uncle, Radek, through your genes. I can travel through dimensions, and I can lock people away in one of them, just like the Prince of Midnight.”
Something in what Michael said makes Gruia’s hologram shimmer. Of course—Victoria is on the flipside.
CHAPTER X
Rux
I stare at Victoria. She senses me, and turns her head to stare back. Her witch-like eyes blast wide in surprise. My stare locks on the bubble that some of her transparent tentacle-like veils is holding up in the air.
“You are projecting Gruia onto the other side of reality,” I whisper, looking up at Gruia’s body shimmering inside the bubble. He doesn’t seem aware of what’s happening on this side.
Victoria gets a grip, but her veils move in jagged shapes, a clear sign my presence unsettles her.
“Quick.” I hurry to her, clinging to hope that she’ll transport me. “You have to take back to the upside.”
But one of her veils hits me in the chest, throwing me back. My body hits the ground, beaten earth and pebbles denting my back. Pain shoots through my body, but I try to come to my feet. I threw away my shoes when I started running down the path, the fishnet stockings torn at my ankles and thighs.
Another veil hits me over the face, sending me back to the ground. I stare up at the dark sky, grey clouds as if full of lead covering it, as I hear Victoria’s laughter.
“I could keep doing this, and I’d love it,” she says in her disembodied voice.
“Please, you have to help me,” I say desperately, trying to come back to my feet. Something trickles under my nose into my mouth, and when I wipe it with my finger I notice it’s blood.
“What do you think I am, your fairy godmother or something?” she wheezes like the wind. Her half grey, half brown hair stands on end, reminding me of Cruella de Vil. That witch nose dripping into her thin mouth adds evil to the anger in her face, too.
“You forget how you used me and betrayed me back in Bran?” she spits. “You made me think you were working with me, trying to channel the demon—your demon—into the world, and in truth you fucking tried to kill yourself! You banished him forever, and left me to die!”
Long veils coil around me like a spindle, squeezing. The air leaves my lungs quickly. I want to scream at her, get her listen to me, but the words won’t leave my mouth. All I can do, out of instinct, is struggle to breathe.
“Part of me actually wants to send you up there, bitch,” she says with satisfaction. “You know why? So you can see Gruia take revenge for both of us, himself and me. So you can watch your indestructible lover kill his own son.” She bites those last words, saliva gathering in small bubbles at the corners of her mouth. She enjoys thinking about Vlad’s emotional pain like a sadist.
An idea hits me. I can use this against her, but I need to force myself to speak despite the pressure in my body. My face is burning, filled with blood and swollen like a balloon that’s about to burst.
“Then send me up. And come with me.”
“You think I haven’t thought about it?” She glances at Gruia’s bubble. “But I can’t be there and still project him like this, protected.”
I can’t talk my way out of this, that’s for sure. She squeezes me too hard, even my feet have started to swell, being the only part of my body outside her spindle-like hold. Then I remember—the witch always shimmered like a ghost or a hologram, because she existed in multiple dimensions at the same time. So how do you pin her down?
Flashes of her touching things return to my mind. The part of her that touched those objects, her hands on someone’s arm, on a vase, on anything, materialized fully in that specific dimension. The clearest memory I have of her materializing is a very old one, actually, from when I was still a child.
I had walked through the forest, guided by the connection I felt to my adoptive mother, Juliet. Someone was hurting her, and that someone was Victoria. After I ripped trees apart with the power of my mind, and sent spikes of wood through her Bloody Maries from a distance, I tilted my head to the side and stared at her with my black eyes. The next thing I knew, she wrapped her arms around Gruia, then still a handsome vampire that she used to sleep with, and materialized fully around him before she disappeared with him to another dimension.
I look down at the veils that wrap me like transparent ropes. They seem the veils of a ghost, like a garment, but they might actually be part of Victoria’s body. They are fully materialized around me, while the rest of her is still ghostly.
It’s worth a try.
Relaxing in her hold, I let the blackness into my eyes, and allow my blood to change until I turn white as snow. I can feel the veils loosening a bit, probably because the sight of me scares Victoria.
I flex my sixth sense, sending electroshocks through the veils. She shrieks, the veils springing off of me and sticking up into the air like the needles of a hedgehog.
I drop to the ground, the connection breaking for a second. But when my head snaps back to Victoria, I notice that, though she’s fully here, in this dimension, part of her is shimmering again, ready to disperse over multiple dimensions. I need to give her pain again immediately, grounding her.
I glance at Gruia’s bubble, seeing him look around like he doesn’t know what hit him. Fuck, the creature is hideous! Even more so than the Old Priest. He doesn’t shimmer anymore, like static, but rather appears here, then disappears again for a few seconds, then reappears.
Victoria notices and touches one transparent veil to him, lifting the bubble from the ground, helping it resume its static blinking, stabilizing it.
I flex my power through Victoria’s veils, careful this time not to hurt her too badly, because I need her.
“Ah, for fuck’s sakes,” she cries. She bares her clenched teeth, eyes reddened with pain but fixed on Gruia, straining to keep him there despite the pain.
“This only gets as painful as you let it, Victoria,” I say in the calmest tone of voice. It makes her look at me, and shake her head as if she can’t believe it. I can tell it’s increasingly difficult for her to keep focusing on Gruia.
“This can’t be happening. The demon left you.”
“This isn’t the demon’s power that I’m using. It’s mine.”
I intensify her pain, her now material body tensing and clenching as she swears.
“I’m a mistress of pain, don’t fuck with me. Don’t be an idiot.” I feel compelled to tell more, even if only to relish the awe in her face. “The demon was my ancestor, so even if he hadn’t shadowed me my entire life, I would have developed occult powers. Actually, I would have developed them a lot earlier, and I’d be even better at it right now. To put it simply, he left dark power encoded in my DNA. When I was free of his influence, my own, natural, personal power had room to bud and flourish.”
I send a jolt of pain through her from her toes to her head. She stiffens and screams, almost dropping Gruia. But the witch is resilient, she has him back up in a second.
I start walking slowly to her in my torn fishnet stockings and red mini dress, my face white as a corpse’s, the black swirling in my eyes, my hair flowing behind me. I must look like I’ve just descended from a horror movie.
“You won’t be able to keep this up forever, Victoria,” I press the advantage. “I can make this hurt so badly that you’ll beg me to kill you. And guess what.” I turn the pain up and down, making her twist, howl, and curse, Gruia’s bubble trembling dangerously.
“I can do this forever without killing you.�
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Her eyes snap open at me, and a current of pleasure courses through me—the woman fears me, and now she almost worships me.
“Fuck’s sakes,” she blurts. “You really are a match for that monster Dracula. You’re more of a monster than he is.”
I smile like this is a compliment. “I wouldn’t go that far, Lord Dracula is a living legend. But I suppose we’re a good match.”
I turn up the pain. She grimaces, her face screwed in as she cries, twisting on the ground like a fish with a hook through its body, her veils erratic around her.
“Take me to the surface, Victoria. And I promise I will put you out of your misery.” I crouch down next to her, her veils floating erratically around me, the wind of the flipside messing my hair. I feel powerful, and hungry for this evil witch’s torment. I point at her, narrowing my eyes as if I’ve just remembered.
“You wanted to do terrible things to my mother, Juliet, isn’t that right? You were jealous because Radek, my dad, fell in love with her instead of you. Because she healed him of the midnight monster with her healer powers, which made him love her like a possessed man.
“Then, five years later, you tried to kill my mother again, yes? And I saved her. Another thirteen years later, you tried to use me in order to harness my demon’s powers for yourself. You used everybody, even your lover, Gruia.”
I intensify the pain, silently watching her body contort, and waiting for her to beg. But the witch is pretty damn resilient. She defies me, even through her entire body is shaking from my torture.
“Never. You’ll never see your lover Dracula again.”
Then she plays out the ace in her sleeve, my demonic black eyes widening at her incoming blow.
Lord Dracula
I REFUSE TO ATTACK Michael, so he eventually makes the first move. I can tell he hoped until the last moment that I would do it.
The hatred in his eyes, and the force with which he swings his silver dagger at me breaks my heart. But I just let it happen as he slides the blade through my throat, slicing through my jugular.
I fall to one knee, taking my hand instinctively to the wound, thick blood flowing through my fingertips. It hurts, but physical pain I’m used to. The emotional wound though, it hurts in a completely new way. Still, the warrior in me can’t help but appreciate his move. It was a good one. Maybe, as indestructible as I’m supposed to be, letting the blood drain from my body could bring about my end. Splitting the jugular open with a silver blade may just keep me mortally wounded long enough, especially since I wouldn’t try to save myself.
Now on my knees, I look up into my son’s face.
“Fight me, damn it,” he growls through his teeth, standing with his feet planted apart in a fighting stance in front of me, dagger in his left hand, dripping blood—yes, I remember. He’s a left-hander. His tutors were in awe at his ‘incredible intelligence’, too, and his spade trainers had never seen a swordsman as fast, his cutting technique perfect and sharp.
I guess I should be proud he’s crowning his skill by killing the notorious Vlad Dracula. But it hurts so bad, watching him commit patricide. It is an unforgivable sin, even among dark supernaturals. Still, there’s no other way. It’s either me, or him. And I won’t endure my own son’s death, no matter what.
I stay down on my knees, letting the blood flow from my throat, and wishing just for one more thing before I die—seeing Rux again.
“Do it, finish him,” Gruia groans hungrily at Michael, but there’s something else in his voice, something that distracts me from my thoughts. Michael hears it, too, because we both look at Gruia at the same time. Michael can probably pay more attention, because my sight is becoming blurry. I’m losing a lot of blood, fast, and not doing anything about it is starting to take a toll.
To my surprise, when my eyes find Gruia there’s no bubble around him anymore. He’s fully here but then, a second later, he isn’t. My senses spike, and my body sends waves of cells to repair the harmed tissue in my throat, now that my mind has found renewed reason to live—protecting my son from the rabid Gruia. I still can’t move my head because of the neck, but my eyes dart to Michael’s and his to me.
Gruia appears again, a startled look on his face that’s full of pus and red open flesh among patches of red beard. He seems more real than before. Must be because he really is here, and not just a projection from the flipside. Whatever is happening, he no longer has Victoria’s protection.
But then the bubble returns, lifting Gruia a few inches in the air, Michael and I staring up at him. Then the bubble bursts, and Gruia falls right back to the floor as if the invisible hands that had been holding him up just dropped him.
Now standing close to us, his eyes flying from one to the other, he tenses, hisses and arches his body, his fangs elongating. They’re grey and pointy, looking more like needles than canines.
“Finish him!” he snarls at Michael, pus invading his irises, glowing green, like poison. “Or I swear to God I’m going to infect you as well, and take down this whole goddamned city. It’ll be full of rabid vampires within hours, and they’ll spread to the rest of the country like cancer. In a matter of months, the rabies will take over the entire world!” He sounds insane. He’s losing his mind.
Gruia looks around himself desperately, as if he expects the bubble to return and protect him, but it doesn’t. Understanding that he doesn’t have protection anymore, for whatever reason, Michael takes a step towards him. Gruia hisses, bending from his waist as if he’s going to throw himself at Michael.
“Come any closer and I will bite you, I swear to God!” he growls. “Even if it’s the last thing I do!”
The wound in my throat is healing rapidly, and I’m starting to get back to my feet.
“Leave him to me,” I tell Michael, my eyes fixed on Gruia. I don’t know how long he’s going to be this exposed, without protection from the witch Victoria, so I’m not planning to waste another moment. “I’m already rabid, he can’t hurt me.”
Michael doesn’t react in any way. He just stands like a block of stone in place, only his eyes moving from me to the foe. He seems a cobra studying a fight scene, waiting for the right moment to strike. He still holds the silver dagger in his hand, my blood dripping from the blade.
I focus completely on Gruia.
“I’m going to enjoy this,” I rumble, approaching him while my claws grow, my knuckles protrude, my face bones enlarge, and my fangs elongate.
Gruia steps backwards, his eyes widening by the second. He purses his lips and hisses, greenish, mucus-like spit accompanying the sound. He spews it at me. I duck to the side, avoiding the poison. It wouldn’t harm me, I’m already infected, but it’s still gross.
I move faster, almost at a run, my lip curling over my teeth, my claws ready to attack. Soon I’ve closed the distance between us, grabbing Gruia’s shoulders. The feeling is pure elation—finally, the originator of the rabies, the creature who started this nightmare, is in my hands. He tries to fight, but doesn’t stand a chance.
“Acting badass was much easier from your witch’s bubble, wasn’t it?” I bare my fangs that are dripping poison. I’m craving his blood. I open my jaws, plunging my fangs into his throat, and tearing his bitter flesh right off his throat bones.
Gruia screams then chokes on his own voice and blood, trembling between my large hands. I ripped muscle and veins from his throat, and I’m now looking into his face with his flesh still between my teeth. I must look like a wild animal, and he stares back at me in horror. His legs give out under him, and when I let him go he collapses to the ground like a mass of disconnected bones under a sack-like priestly cape. He’s dying, and the pain must be excruciating.
“I may be a lesser vampire,” he yet manages, blood swelling in his mouth. Green mist begins rising from his body, and in the distance I see it rising over the city. The rabies is leaving him, and the vampires he infected, freeing them. “Still, your wife. Victoria. By now. Dead.”
Something c
racks in my head, and my ears make a terrible piping sound as I watch Gruia’s last convulsions. He dies, and despair takes me—Rux must be fighting Victoria on the flipside, which is why he lost protection. Instead of merely projecting him into this reality, Victoria teleported him here, because with her attention on someone else, she couldn’t keep up the projection.
Fuck! This could mean anything. That Rux is finishing her, or that she is finishing Rux.
CHAPTER XI
Rux
With her last strength, Victoria grabs my ankle. Her wrist starts to dissipate, and I remember that’s what things looked like when she transported herself—and me—to another dimension. She shows her teeth in an expression of both pain and strain.
“If I’m going down, demoness, you’re coming with me.”
Panicking, I send currents of pain through her, but even though she shakes under the electroshocks, she doesn’t let go of my ankle.
My shin starts to dissipate like sand in the wind, and my brain almost shuts down. I’m desperate for a solution.
Then I find it.
“There,” I cry, pointing to the place where Gruia’s bubble should be. “You lost control of his bubble! He’s no longer here.” I narrow my eyes on her. “He’s materialized fully on the other side, right into Vlad’s claws. He’ll be dead within minutes.”
I laugh like an evil witch, but it’s more of a nervous laughter than anything else. I’m hoping with all I have that she’ll transport us to Vlad’s reality instead of whatever prison she wanted to take me to, but I know chances are slim. I can read it in her face—all is lost anyway, she can’t do much to help Gruia.
I resume hurting her as both of us dissipate like spiralling sand, growing and swirling like a tornado.
“Make no mistake, Victoria,” I call over the raging wind. “I will not kill you! I will just keep hurting you, forever if I must! I’ll trap you in that prison with me and give you waves of pain, just bearable enough so you don’t die. I’ll torture you for eternity!”