BOOK 2 - Viktoria Ch. 04

Viktoria, Dream, and Idris walked a tunnel of light towards black fog.

"That's where Musette is?" Idris' hands clenched into fists and his chest rose and fell with his deep breaths.

Dream nodded. "Memory remembered the things Musette had forgotten and this is where she brought us."

"Musette! Wake up!" The sound of Ember's strident voice jolted Idris into a run and he took off.

The gloom they bolted into was lit by numerous balls of light. Shadows played along the walls, floor and ceiling. Musette hung suspended from the ceiling, wrapped in strings, no those were webs, from her neck to her toes. Her head lolled forward, chin resting on her chest.

Enormous black wings grew from Ember's back and she swung a glowing silver sword as she hacked at shadows, taking to the air in short bursts with powerful flaps.

"I've definitely never seen a witch like that one before." Memory grinned. "This is so exciting!"

Ember waved an arm and more orbs of light manifested, reflecting off hundreds of black eyes, creatures of darkness hiding in shadows.

Her shadows.Why did these ugly things always seek to hide in her shadows? Rage flooded Viktoria and she raised her arms. "Creatures of darkness, you will have shelter in shadow no longer." She drew the shadows in the room towards her, revealing hundreds of black spiders.

Ember snarled and her blade moved in a silver blur as she hacked through the arachnids.

Viktoria coiled shadows into whips and lashed out at the spiders closest to her, snapping the end of her whip at one of the creatures that had dropped onto Dream.

Idris rushed forward with a roar. He stomped on spiders, forging a crunching path towards Ember with his hand out. "Weapon!"

Laughing, Ember glowed a brighter silver. "Sorry. It's bring you own."

"Dream it!" Dream shouted.

He spun to look at her.

"I can make it come true if you dream it!"

A short spear with a wicked barbed tip and an axe appeared in Idris' hands. He roared again, the sound reminding Viktoria of the great white bears of Pohjola. He threw the spear and a large spider swinging on a web towards him screamed as it was impaled and carried backwards until the spear thunked into the wall. Another spear filled his hand. His eyes and grin were full of madness.

Well, I did think berserkers would be better. Stepping in front of her sisters, Viktoria pulled shadow after shadow to her, exposing more spiders to the light. Closing her fist, she crushed spiders in a vise of shadow.

"There must be a thousand of them." Memory breathed. "They're feeding on Musette's magic. We have to kill them all to free her from this place."

Ember and Idris fought back to back, her silver glow expanding to shield him. Dead spiders piled up in heaps around them. Idris threw spear after spear, impaling a new spider and pinning it to the wall each time.

Viktoria stayed with her sisters, using shadow to lash at the spiders from a distance. A warm tingle on her thigh distracted her. She glanced down to see if she was bitten.

"Look out, Shadow!" Dream called.

She snapped her gaze up. A cluster of spiders swung on lines of webbing towards her from where she'd stripped shadow from them.

Two silver lights shone from behind her. The spiders shrieked and tried to recoil. Lurky bounded past, his swords glowed silver like Ember's and whirled in deadly circles to slash spiders and webs alike.

Lurky spun with lethal grace, his blades long time partners that knew the steps in a dance the three of them moved together in with practiced ease.

Viktoria shifted, trying to get out from behind his bulk so she could wield her whips of shadow, but Lurky seemed to know when she moved and altered his path to match hers.

"Get down and stay behind me! I won't let them hurt you." He barked the words as an order, not bothering to look at her.

Furious, Viktoria lashed out with tendrils of shadow over Lurky's head, tearing through webbing and dropping spiders from their nests. "Just try to stay out of my way, Lurky. I don't want your help or protection."

He adjusted as she stepped to the side once again, swords spinning to cleave spiders as they fell.

Weaving strands of shadow into nets, Viktoria caught spiders by the dozen, hurling them into walls and the floor.

Keeping his back to her, Lurky retreated, crowding into her space. "I told you to get down and stay behind me! I can't protect you if I don't know where you are."

"I don't need you to protect me, Lurky." She was so close to her freedom, and she hadn't spent centuries learning to take care of herself to lose the chance of gaining it because of this vampire. If she had to be rescued, even once, her mother would take her right back to Pohjola, and none of them would ever be free.

Infuriated, Viktoria curled her hands into fists, pulling on every trace of shadow. Channeling her rage, she threw open her hands and flung out her arms. Every shadow in the room exploded into shards and targeted a spider.

Ember whooped and Idris roared in triumph. Dream and Memory laughed and clapped their hands as hundreds of impaled spiders fell to the floor in droves.

Lurky spun around to face her, brow furrowed, eyes narrowed.

He was angry she could take care of herself? Viktoria didn't care. She should have known better than to get involved with a vampire. Ignoring him, she turned her attention to the back wall.

Only one section of darkness remained in the room, the largest one had resisted her pull. It seemed to take up the whole rear wall. She focused on it now, pulling it to her. Legs unfurled from a bulbous body instead. This was no shadow, it was a spider the size of the back wall, and it had its fangs sunk into the back of Musette's neck.

Dream gasped and Viktoria spun to see Memory catch their sister as she slumped. "Is she bitten?"

"No." Memory cradled Dream. "Just exhausted."

A roar shook the room, and Viktoria whirled back around. Idris had grown to twice his normal size, and wielded a spear that had to be fifteen feet long.

Ember flapped her wings, lifted off the ground and charged at this new target The spider whirled to face her, but did not remove its fangs from Musette's neck as it kept Ember's sister between them.

But her target was not the spider. Ember raised her sword and slashed at the string of web holding Musette up at the same time the spear Idris threw took the spider in eye and went straight through its head.

Ember's wings beat the air, but she couldn't hold the weight of she and her sister in the air and when Idris held out his arms, she let her sister fall into them. Idris shrank into his normal size and cut at the webbing that bound Musette with his axe. Ember flew to the fat abdomen of the spider that had been feeding on Musette and slashed it open.

Shimmers of purple and silver flowed out of the beast's belly into the air. Every other spider in the room exploded into dust, releasing more siphoned magic until the entire room was filled with it.

Ember landed next to Idris and helped slash away the webbing. It dissolved under the tip of her sword.

Lurky sheathed his swords over his shoulders and reached for Viktoria's hands, but she stepped back out of his reach. He ran his eyes over her, from head to toe. The intensity in his gaze made her skin feel hot and she gave him her back when he started to speak.

She knelt by her sisters, ignoring Lurky and how her heart picked up its beat when he fell to his knees beside her, pressed against her side. He was just a man she dreamed about. How he was in her dreams wasn't real. It didn't mean anything, and she couldn't afford to give in to lust now.

Viktoria cleared her throat. "Are you all right, Dream?"

Dream gave her a tired smile as her eyes flicked back and forth between Viktoria and Lurky. "I'm fine. Just tired. Idris has big dreams. It took a lot of my power to make them come true in this place."

Ember and Idris joined them, Idris cradling Musette in his arms. Purple and silver magics swirled around Musette, but didn't join with her. Purple tendrils reached out to the silver cloud, seeming curious, but the silver magic recoiled, staying near but separate.

"She dreams now," Dream said. "She will wake."

"When?" Idris demanded.

Dream shrugged. "I can't tell. She will wake when she no longer needs to dream."

"It's not being siphoned from her anymore but she's still separated from her magic." Lurky waved a hand through some of the silvery shimmer. "I can't see it anymore, but I know what magic separated from its witch looks like. Maybe she needs to get her magic back before she can wake up."

"I locked away her memories of the mage and all the spiders," Memory said. "She can remember them if she's ever ready. She just has to want to."

"I'll tell her. I'm going to take her and Idris to my Draga space." Ember brushed some hair off Musette's face. "She knows it. Maybe somewhere familiar will help her be more comfortable after this place."

Viktoria stood and hugged Ember. "Call me if I can help."

"I will." Ember's eyes lit up as they darted between Viktoria and Jael. She knelt and whispered into Viktoria's ear. "I think I'll call anyway. You're keeping something from me, Soră." She hugged Dream and Memory. "Thank you too. I wouldn't have been able to find her here without you."

Ember stood. "Jael—"

Lurky raised a hand to stop her. "Just don't give me any more heart attacks about taking Stryx in the sun and we'll call it even."

Ember smirked. "If you like, I can run everything I plan to do to him by you first to get your opinion. When I get back, if he's a good boy, I'm going to spread my—"

"Stop!" Lurky held up his hands.

"Wings. He likes to touch my wings." Ember finished with a laugh. "Shame on you, Jael! What kind of girl do you think I am?" She winked, and she, Idris and Musette disappeared.

"Melchior is right. They're all lunatics," Lurky muttered.

"Who's all lunatics?" Memory asked.

"Never you mind." Jael scooped Dream into his arms and stood, walking back into the tunnel of light. "Shall we go?"

"Can you wake us, Dream?" Memory asked.

"In a few minutes." She gazed up at Lurky. "While we're waiting, what are your intentions towards my sister?"

"He should be more concerned about my intentions towards him." Viktoria held up her hands, swirling with shadows. "How dare you come here and treat me like I'm some helpless damsel who needs rescuing? Put my sister down. She doesn't need to be coddled, either."

"Viktoria, he—"

"No, Dream. You have to learn to rely on yourself. Or do you want to fail when it's your turn? It's because you let them treat you this way that they keep doing it!"

Jael let Dream wiggle out of his arms, holding her steady until she stood without swaying. He met Viktoria's furious blue eyes. "You're my Draga and my intentions are to do what I must to protect you. That's how it's going to be."

"I am not your anything. Don't let me catch you near me again."

"Or what?"

"Or you'll get to live in the shadows you think you own, because I'll put you in one so deep, just dark would be a relief."

<><><><><>

Gripping the steering wheel, Viktoria willed herself to calm down enough to drive. Coming off the high of the fight against the spiders, then the argument with Lurky in Selene's room had her shaking.

"What is it, Shadow?" Dream asked. "Are you mad at me? I saw the way he was in your dream—"

Viktoria sighed. "I'm not mad at you Dream. But that's all it was, just a dream. You saw how he is, like everyone else who thinks we're mindless and need to be saved."

"I thought you were going to strangle him with shadows!" Memory bounced in her seat. "I've never seen you so angry before. But he deserved it. You killed more of those spiders than all of them put together!"

"And you saw how that mattered not at all." Viktoria started the car and drove down the driveway. "I think I'm going to leave Port Storm. With so many vampires around there's bound to be trouble. I just have to do one more thing, first."

"But you love it here." Dream put her hand on Viktoria's leg.

"It's just a place, Dream," Viktoria said. "I'll find a new one. It's not like I haven't had to do it before." She stopped the car as the gate at the end of the driveway remained closed.

Please let me out, haunted house.

Soră. Don't go. The haunted house's voice was subdued, the sadness in it dissolving her anger at Lurky.

I have to leave so I can help Musette.

You'll come back?

Yes, I'll come back.

The gate opened and Viktoria drove through.

"What one thing do you need to do?" Memory asked.

"I want to make sure things are safe here for Ember and Musette. They won't leave because of the vampires, but I think I met one of the men who did that to Musette." Viktoria held up the scrawled note Michel had given her. "He came to the gallery show I had with Ember, pretending to be Musette's friend and said he was looking for her. He must have been one of the men who took her to sell to mages."

"We're going to do something about him, right?" Memory demanded.

"Of course we are. I'll call him when we get home and we'll make a plan to catch a spider in a web of our own."

<><><><><>

Jael scaled the wall of the castle and slipped inside through an un-shuttered window. Candles lit the dim interior and it was easy to stay in the shadows as he made his way out of the room and down the hall. It was hours before dawn, a time when people slept, dreamed, and didn't expect bad things to happen.

The last mage Jael captured sent him here, telling him the one responsible for the deaths of his family lived in a castle in Dacia in an effort to save his life. It hadn't. Jael never spared mages for any reason, although they could always think of surprising variety of reasons for him to spare them just before they died.

This was not the first trip he had made out of Media to track down a murderer.

Jael paused outside each door to listen. Even in sleep people made noise—the rustle of bedclothes as they turned, a murmur in a dream, the cadence of steady breaths, but he heard nothing. The whole castle was unnaturally quiet. If the torches didn't flicker and move shadows along the hall there would be no life in this place at all.

He'd been in mage rooms before, spaces spelled to prevent sound from carrying, but an entire castle of no noise? Maybe this mage was more powerful than the others. Maybe he was finally getting to the ones in charge.

Jael crept down the stairs to the next floor and peered into the first room he came to. It was some sort of study. He stepped into the room, but spun back around as the most beautiful voice he'd ever heard rose in song somewhere further down the hall. He reached over his shoulders for his swords.

A witch had spelled the medallions in the hilts of his swords with protections as thanks for his rescue of her, but in spite of that he was drawn towards the voice. This was no mage magic, then. Another witch who needed help?

He followed the voice. He didn't understand the words, they were in a language he'd never heard before, but the melody called to him, luring him closer.

He walked down the corridor in a trance and turned into a bedroom. Here, the windows were covered with heavy curtains, and a beautiful woman wearing a long-sleeved, low cut, simple gown stood in the center of the room, swaying to the song. Her waist length bronze colored hair whirled around her when she turned to face him. She was tall and slender, and one second she was across the room, the next right in front of him. He hadn't seen her move.

"Are you a Djinn?"

She stopped singing and hummed instead as she looped her arms about his neck. His hands itched to drop his swords, but he held on to them as he closed his arms around her smaller frame.

"Who are you?"

She spoke words in his head as her Orphic melody guided his feet, and they spun together around the room in a dance.

"Do you want to protect me?"

Confusion swamped his mind, but in that moment one need overrode everything else. "More than anything."

"Do you want to stay with me forever?"

Jael did. "Yes."

"Will you love me, always?"

The question jarred him out of his trance. He shook his head to try and clear it. His wife. His daughter. He loved them. He had to avenge them. "I... I can't."

The woman's purple eyes turned black and her face morphed into that of a monster before she buried her fangs in his throat.

Time had passed but he wasn't sure how long it had been. Jael was tired, his body drained of all energy. He fought to open his eyes, but couldn't.

"You can't just keep eating them when they don't fall in love with you!" a man yelled.

"Why not?" a female voice retorted. Her voice was abrasive now and scraped his mind. "He was coming to kill us. You saw his swords. I was protecting us!"

"Peace between us," a second male voice said. "He wakes."

The first man scoffed. "For all the good it will do him."

"We will speak with him. The choice will be his. It's all we can offer him now," the second man replied.

Jael closed his fists, wanting to feel the comfort of his swords, but they were no longer in his hands. Panic opened his eyes. He was still in the bedroom, but on his back in the bed.

The singing woman was diminutive in between two men. They all had similar faces. One of the men had silver hair and green eyes, the other gold hair and blue eyes.

The purple-eyed woman growing fangs and her eyes turning black was the last thing he remembered. Since he'd started his battle with mages, he'd encountered people who shifted into animals, djinn, and all sorts of witches. He hadn't come across these before, but he'd heard of them. "Vampires."

"Close enough. You're going to feel very weak. I'm Riordan," the gold-haired man said. "This is my brother Tazraus, and you've met our sister Resquiescere. Why have you invaded our home?"

"Came to... kill mages... " Jael rasped. He was so thirsty. He felt withered.

"Did you?" Tazraus arched an eyebrow and crossed his arms over his chest. "Well, you won't find any mages here."

"Want to kill... all... the mages..." Jael's heart faltered and he gasped.

"You don't have much time," Riordan said. "You won't live through this. You can die and go to your afterlife, or you can turn. You will die but rise again. If you become like us you will never again look on the sun and you will have to feed on blood to sustain yourself. But mages are no friends of ours. You could kill them until you lose your head or your heart. Death or turning are your choices."

In the end, it wasn't a hard decision. He'd become an assassin and sworn to kill mages. He would gladly trade the sun for more time to wipe them from the face of the earth.

"Turn me," Jael said, "and I will vow to protect you. Your enemies become mine."

Resquiescere seemed to float across the floor. "I want to do it! Tazraus stole my turn last time!"

"Don't be mad, Req." Tazraus smiled. "If I hadn't acted Ciaran would be dead. You like him."

Resquiescere whirled on her brother. "But he doesn't love me! No one has loved me in almost four thousand years."

Tazraus put a hand on his sister's shoulder and softened his tone from teasing to empathetic. "You can't make them love you, Req. None of us can."

She shrugged his hand off. "What do you care, Taz? You have your nzumbi and your dragon and your nymph!"

"Peace." Riordan stepped between his siblings. "The mortal doesn't have much time. If you want to turn him, do it now, Resquiescere."

Resquiescere beamed and climbed onto the bed with Jael. Straddling him, she fisted her hands in his shirt and pulled him to a sitting position. She used a sharp fingernail to slice a line into the skin of her throat. Rich, deep red blood welled up from the cut.