Legacy: The Niteclif Evolutions, Book 1 (37 page)

“They aren’t exactly zombies, are they?” I asked, my words only slightly slurred.

“No,
Madeleine
, they are not zombies,” Tarrek answered, his voice carrying from somewhere in the midst of the mobile bodies. They were like a walking shield. “They are a byproduct of the
cú sith
when it’s controlled by a superior creature such as myself.

“You need to understand that this has all been a matter of besting Bahlin,
Madeleine
. I knew of the prophecy from Leith and Meyla, via Hellion. I had hoped you would choose me originally, and then I could rule the High Council without going through this extra effort. But you proved a stupid, sentimental mortal and I was forced to carry on with my original plan of collecting talents. What I couldn’t have hoped for was that when you chose Bahlin, he would actually love you so much as he does. Or should I say did since tonight’s his last on this plane?” Bodies shifted around the central figure but it was too fast for me to really see him. “I’d hoped for it, but more than anything it’s just a bonus. I knew if I could create a competition where he figured himself the winner of your affections and then I destroyed you, he’d be easier to kill. I need his Dragon’s Stone to complete the metamorphosis with the vampire’s heart. I originally thought I’d need his body, but I’ve fared well with the change so far, wouldn’t you say?”

He emerged from the army of bodies, and I gasped. He
was
transformed, his face part dog, his hair a white-blond like Hellions but with green undertones, and his body infinitely larger.

Nausea was building in my stomach, and I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to pull off my part of the changed plans. “I have a question, Tarrek.”

Leith looked at me sharply, realizing that this was a departure from my script.

“Go on,
Madeleine
,” he said mockingly.

“Why did you need me here so badly? Or am I just bait?”

“Oh, don’t flatter yourself,” Imeena said sharply.

“Imeena,” Tarrek bellowed before regaining control of his temper. “You’re looking at my two generals, and this is my army, though everyone needs to remember who their king is.” Tarrek called one of the other vampires forward. He came to Tarrek, and Imeena gave a small hiss.

“Not Darrek,” she said, the slightest of pleading in her voice.

“It’s not your choice, is it?” Tarrek took a deep breath and the man’s back arched, something wispy and dark being pulled from his mouth and nose. Tarrek seemed to drink it down. The man stood there, eyes dead, and Tarrek said, “Join the others.”

The man walked to the edge of Tarrek’s army and stood, one of the mindless masses.

“Bahlin’s place as either victim or soldier will be determined by how willing he is to fall into line.”

Leith’s body stiffened. “You promised me,” he snarled, “you promised me I’d take his place in the new order.”

Aha.
Leith was jealous of Bahlin’s political success.

Tarrek shrugged and said, “We’ll see when it all comes down. I need the strongest warriors I can find, and so long as I have a Dragon’s Stone,
any
Stone, I’ll be content.” He looked pointedly at Leith, who broke eye contact and glared at me. “Besides, it’s so hard to tell who will be the better man for the job. Isn’t that right, Jossel?”

A once-beautiful faerie nodded woodenly and my heart broke for him. All these people, all these mythological creatures, and I’d been unable to save them.

Leith trembled with rage, his eyes flashing to icy blue.

Imeena feigned a yawn, walking over to Tarrek and running a manicured hand suggestively across the crotch of his leather pants.

“Nice,” I commented. “But I’d save some mystery for the bedroom, Imeena.”

She hissed at me, her pupils eating into her eyes until they were a flat black.

A war cry ripped through the sounds of shuffling bodies and the roof four stories up peeled back. Using the diversion I unholstered Bahlin’s pistol and shot Tarrek in the chest three times in fast succession. Blood and bone splattered against the faces of the nearest soulless creatures and they turned, watching Tarrek fall. Then they turned back and looked at me, blank faces devoid of any reaction.

“You fool,” screamed Imeena. “He was the only thing controlling them.” She moved like a flash toward the hole in the roof, scrambling up the stone walls like a spider. The other creatures charged the doors and windows, some flying, some running, but all prepared to fight. Outside the sounds of battle and the flashes of battle—gunfire, magic, fire and more—were already decorating the night.

“Coward,” Leith yelled at her retreating form and then he turned on me. “You stupid bitch. You’ve ruined everything.” He launched himself across the hall, shifting mid-leap, his dragon as large as Bahlin’s though his scales were more battle-scarred and his eyes slightly milky. I could see several missing teeth in his gaping maw, but it was irrelevant, really. Sort of like saying an orca was ill equipped to catch a seal pup because the orca needed braces to correct its bite.

Bahlin’s dragon trumpeted in rage, continuing to rip the roof back. I looked back at the advancing hostile dragon and Tarrek’s army and I knew he’d never get here in time. I looked up at Leith and saw a string of Tarrek’s soldiers fall onto his back from a break in the upper balcony railing caused by Bahlin’s whipping tail as he fought his way into the building. The fallen bodies knocked Leith slightly off balance. He instinctively stuck his forearms out to catch his balance, and I saw the small soft spot over his heart. I squinted, trying to keep him in focus and I squeezed off shots until the gun dry fired. At least one ripped through his flesh, and he screamed in pain just as Bahlin got enough of the roof off to fully pull himself inside the hall. He gripped the back of his father’s head in his jaws and ripped, covering me in gore when the body flopped to the floor.

A garbled voice said something indiscernible, and the soldiers turned to me. They fell on me in succession, and I was defenseless. I felt them ripping at my hair and clothes and pulling at my limbs with abandon. I screamed, biting, kicking and scratching to no avail. Suddenly a clawed hand reached through the bodies and Bahlin grabbed me, yanking me to his barrel chest one-handed as he tried to crawl up the walls and reach the night sky. Sounds of fighting could still be heard outside, but it was the voiceless scrabbling across stone and wood that came from behind us that terrified me. I was battered and bleeding, and it felt like my right shoulder had been fully dislocated. My right knee had been violently wrenched and was swollen and hot to the touch. Something was torn.

With a cry of shock laced with pain, Bahlin shuddered as something hit him hard. I struggled to see, but he clutched me closer and I heard a dragon screech at him. He bucked again and I knew we were in trouble. Bahlin set me down roughly on the empty balcony that jutted out from the second floor and looked at me. No one was home in that face but his monster.

“Go,” I shouted, as the blue dragon behind him reared back to strike again.

Bahlin launched himself backward and took the other dragon to the floor. I struggled to draw myself to the edge so I could look over, but the stone balustrade was crumbled and piled too high for me to see much without standing, and I could only make it to one knee.

Sounds of intense fighting came from below and I nearly missed the sound of a body being dragged across the floor behind me. I threw myself sideways, away from the sound, and the stone railing I’d been propped against disintegrated into dust. I instinctively reached behind myself to break my fall. The jarring impact shoved my swollen shoulder back into joint, and I screamed.

Tarrek stared at me, blood bubbling from his mouth with every breath.

“I shot you,” I rasped, my throat raw. “I know I hit you with cold iron bullets. How…”

“You hit my lungs but missed the heart, bitch,” he said, pushing himself up to sitting. “I’ll heal,” he gasped, blood and spittle raining on the floor around him in a macabre pattern.

I tried to push myself up but it was too much work. I lay there, knowing I was going to die. I reached behind me with my left hand and grasped my last hope. It was the one knife Leith hadn’t known about, the one that hadn’t been ripped off me by the soulless, grasping hands. I fumbled, trying to get the knife from the tape holster stuck to my skin, but it had been fashioned for my right hand.

“Don’t do it, Maddy,” Tarrek gasped, beginning to raise a hand toward me. I knew the hand held my death.

I ripped the tape holster from my back, tearing skin away at the same time. Blood ran down my back and seeped between my butt cheeks, pooling under my right hip. That was going to leave a mark. Pulling the knife from the homemade holster, I shoved myself to my feet, my right knee refusing to hold any weight.

“Come on, you jackass,” I croaked, weaving like a drunk.

“So eager to die? I should have killed you the first night, at the stones.”

“That is
so
canned,” I snarked, rolling my eyes. Then I paused, looking at him. “That was
you
?”

“It was.”

“Did you put my family tree in the car?”

He cocked his head to one side, considering. “No, I did not.” He coughed and some of his discharge splattered me. “Enough.”

Tarrek pushed himself to standing, and I knew this was my one chance. I gritted my teeth just as he raised his hands, opening his mouth to begin chanting under his breath, and I pushed off with my good leg. I fell into him and sliced across his face with my knife, splitting his lips horizontally to stop the spell. Blood splattered my face and hands, and I dropped the knife as I fell. I was a dead woman.

Bodies of Tarrek’s soldiers rounded the corner at an awkward run. I lay there and accepted death. It had ironically taken me ten days to finally live—to make a wish, to fall in love, and now to die.

A horrible roar came from below as a dragon launched itself over the railing at our little party, shifting into a woman before hitting the balcony.

“Tarrek,” screamed Brylanna. “No.” She held him to her breast, sobbing. “You must stay with me my love.”

That explained a lot. I heard a commotion behind me and Bahlin pulled himself over the ledge. Looking at me he froze and I whispered, “Finit.”

With a roar of pain and rage, Bahlin belched out a column of fire that devoured the two lovers, taking them into death’s embrace together, but not before Tarrek’s final spell was cast. It blew me back into the wall. Bahlin turned to me in slow motion and began to shift back to human. The horror on his face was the last thing I saw before darkness claimed me.

I sat up and was amazed that nothing hurt. I looked around and realized that Tyr was at my side.

“You may have set a record,” he said and almost smiled. “Shortest Niteclif service in the history of all Niteclifs. Do I congratulate or console you?”

I thought about that for a minute. “Wait. I can’t be dead,” I challenged, looking around for proof, but there was none to be had.

“You have a choice, Madeleine Dylis Niteclif,” Tyr said. “Do you stay, or do you go?”

“Go where?” I asked skeptically. “Because there are options, apparently.”

Tyr tipped his head back and laughed but sobered quickly as something happening over my shoulder caught his eye. I turned to see what he was looking at and I froze, my heart seizing in my chest.

Bahlin was bent over me giving me CPR. Not good. He was working feverishly, but I obviously wasn’t responding.

“Put. Me. Back,” I said, my voice and posture uncompromising. “I mean it, Pops.”

“Ah, you’re shitted. No, wait. That’s not right. Hmm. You’re pissed. That’s it. You’re pissed,” Tyr said, look pleased with himself for getting the slang right.

“Yes, I’m
pissed
. Put me back or show me how to get back.” I turned and looked at Bahlin who continued with chest compressions, a new franticness taking over his earlier smooth efforts. Behind him lay the smoking remains of corpses. They were so charred and mangled, piles of limbs sticking this way and that, it was impossible to tell who had died.

“Do you love him?” Tyr asked.

“I do,” I said, pain beginning in my chest. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t…

“Do you believe he loves you?” Tyr asked. I didn’t answer for a moment, and Tyr asked again. “I need to know, Maddy.”

“He does love me. I have to believe it,” I said, turning my back on Bahlin so I could answer Tyr without the distraction Bahlin presented. “I don’t want to die, Tyr.”

“Then live.”

I slammed back into my body with the force of a Mac truck wrestling with a squirrel. I was the squirrel. Everything hurt and Bahlin’s chest compressions felt like they may have cracked my sternum. I involuntarily arched my back off the ground, my mouth gaping as I sucked in air, falling back to the floor with a muffled thud.

Bahlin shouted, then grabbed me and pulled me close. “This is goin’ teh hurt yeh like the devil,
mo muirnín
,” he murmured, “but there’s no choice for it.” And then he bit me. Fire breathed through my body, the flames licking at my raw, open wounds the same as wildfire consumes everything, with indiscriminate speed. I swear I saw light flicker behind my eyelids as I clenched them shut, trying to breathe through the pain. But it was too much and I began to struggle, screaming and begging and pleading with him to stop. It was so much worse than the last time…so much worse. My heart stuttered and I thought,
Beat, damn you
, and I focused on its rhythm, willing it into compliance. It was horrible. Bahlin lifted his head and I foolishly thought it was over, but he was just moving on to different wounds. It went on and on, with Bahlin shifting his bite now and again, renewing my screams and pleas. I quit struggling before he made it to my lower body, and passed out somewhere around the bite to my knee. This time Tyr didn’t visit me. Smart deity.

I came to lying on the grass outside, Bahlin back in dragon form and crouched over me as a small woman I vaguely recognized from earlier went over my wounds. Bahlin was bleeding all over the grass and the night sky had swallowed the moon so there was no light by which to see his wounds. It must be late. I tried to lift a hand to him, but my arms weren’t working yet.