Scarlet Night (Limited Edition) (34 page)

Keith’s eyes widened as his rage-clouded vision shifted to reveal his mistake and he began to shake.

“And…” Serena chuckled, “… you forgot… about… him.” She managed to point over her brother’s shoulder at
Maledictus
before her strength left her and she hit the ground.

N
ikki’s eyes widened as she ran towards
Maledictus
. The beast had gone berserk with rage after watching Keith stab Serena, and while she was worried for the sake of her friend’s wellbeing—Serena’s usually bold and vibrant purple aura rapidly fading—it was, as much as she hated to admit it, Keith that she was most concerned for.

If he died now, everything they’d
just accomplished would be for nothing.

“
Maledictus
! You
must not
kill him!” she yelled, her tattoos flaring as she tried to calm the curse. Though the speed and ferocity diminished from the monster’s attacks, it did not stop them. “Help Serena!
Maledictus
, you
can
save her!”

This sto
pped the onslaught for a moment—the half of Keith’s face that wasn’t hemorrhaging and swollen beyond use gazing out thankfully for a pause in the rampage—and the rage-filled face of Zane’s curse turned away from its work to snarl at her:

“
WE
DO NOT
SAVE! WE ARE
DEATH
! WE ARE
DESTRUCTION
!
” he jabbed a finger at Keith, causing the beaten and bloodied vampire to wince, “
AND WE
WILL NOT
STOP UNTIL HE IS
—”

Nikki
, now beside him, brought her hand down on the beast’s face, “Shut the hell up and keep Serena alive!”

Maledictus
snarled and narrowed his eyes at Nikki as he raised a massive clawed hand.

Nikki narrowed her eyes, her tattoos flaring, “
If
you care about her you’ll be able to
stop
killing and destroying for
five
minutes!” The scarlet aura and fiery rage in
Maledictus
’ eyes calmed and shifted to Serena. “That’s what I thought,” Nikki nodded, “Now do whatever you can for her!”

As it turned out, the
Maledictus
curse—one that was created to kill, maim, torture, mutilate, and destroy—made the curse surprisingly good at knowing how to treat the conditions of its handiwork. Unable to focus entirely on the task of keeping Keith’s ravaged body from slipping into unconsciousness, Nikki found herself glancing back at the beast as its scarlet aura worked fervently on keeping Serena’s vitals stable. Zoey, after helping Isaac and the others finish off those of Keith’s army who hadn’t fled into the woods after
Maledictus
had begun painting the clearing with him, had hesitantly stepped beside the strangely calm beast to do anything she could for her friend, though the assistance seemed unnecessary at that point. Stealing another glance, Nikki watched again as
Maledictus
utilized its knowledge of anatomy and pain tolerance to numb Serena’s agony while keeping her life-force from fading any further than it already had.

She bit her lip and turned back to Keith, throwing another wave of magic into his body to keep his heart beating and hoping the impact hurt him.

It just seemed so… unnatural.

As dawn approached and the sun began to take its scheduled journey over the horizon, a roar of vehicles
grew in the distance. Being so deep in the forest, the sound of anything motorized—short of the occasional dirt-bike or four-wheeler driven by thrill-seeking campers—was an alien one, and as every ear in the clearing still attached to a living brain was made aware of it, all attention turned towards it.

When the first of the pitch-black SUVs broke through the brush and into the clearing—kicking up clumps of frosted earth under its belted tires—and skidded to a violent stop, it became very evident that campers were not the source.

This Jeep was soon after joined by several others that were just as dark and tinted and ominous, and as they came to stop around the first their doors swung open simultaneously and a team of Mythos in equally dark suits stepped out. With nearly three dozen seemingly identical figures strategically placing themselves around the clearing—some casting out their auras in preparation for whatever might be stupid enough to try something while others kept their hands close to whatever gun or bladed weapon they’d strapped to their waist—and making sure that anything that
could
surprise them would be unable to. After a moment, one of the aurics that had stayed nearer to the parked caravan reached out with a pine-green aura to each of the others and took a psychic reading before giving a final sweep of the clearing and nodding to somebody in the back of the center SUV.

As the door opened, the clearing went ten degrees colder. With every eye glued to the him, an immaculate
vampire with slicked-back blonde hair and a finely-trimmed, matching goatee and sporting a blood-red three-piece suit stepped out and nodded to the auric.

“
Thank you, Angelo. If you and the others can begin to tidy up I’d like to have a moment alone with our new friends.”

The auric nodded and quietly turned and began gesturing to the others. In a flash of activity, the sangs in the group vanished into overdrive and the aurics began a choreographed
sweep of the area with their auras. In less than ten seconds, nearly all of the dead bodies had vanished and all evidence of the battle stripped from the landscape.

“So graceful…” Zoey stared in awe.

“Aren’t they, though?” the blonde vampire chimed in a smooth Italian accent as he stepped towards them, beaming a perfectly-white smile beneath a pair of perfect green eyes, “It’s always fun to watch them work.” He quirked an eyebrow at the sight of
Maledictus
and lingered on Serena’s body before moving his gaze as he took in each of them, “What? Why’s everyone so tense? Oh my, of course! Where are my manners?” he bowed slightly, “My name is Damiano Moratti—fifth chair of The Council—and I’ve come in regards to a troubling message from Vail-heiress, Serena.”

Zoey frowned, looking down at Serena for a moment, “Troubling?” she frowned at Damiano, “What do you mean? When did she—”

“I believe her
exact
words were…” he frowned and shook his head, reaching into the breast pocket of his coat and pulling out a small piece of parchment, “Ah yes! ‘Incompetent sheep-fuckers’—so delightfully charming, yes?” he glanced at the leering
Maledictus
and nodded, “You have a keeper, my friend!”

Maledictus
sneered and stifled a growl.

“Down, Dino. We’re here to help,” he waved a condescending hand at the beast as he turned his back on him and started towards Keith. “Yes…
quite
troubling indeed. I daresay that for one to use such…” he smirked, “…
colorful
words when addressing us is a sign that things
may
have gotten out of hand somewhere.” He knelt down in front of Keith, rubbing the flat of his thumb against the bottom of his goatee, “wouldn’t you say so,
compagno
?”

Keith whimpered
and groaned in pain as he tried to put distance between himself and Damiano and forgetting that
Maledictus
had, true to his word, fractured both of his femurs. The tremor of pain and ensuing threat of shock reminded Nikki that she had stopped casting on him when The Council had arrived, and she went to give Keith another dose of magic.

“Oh no no no,
bella
, that will not be necessary. From what I’ve gathered on my way here our dear Keith is
quite
capable at taking care of matters himself.” His green eyes shifted for the first time to something terrifying and the air chilled-over once again in response, “Isn’t that
right
?”

Keith shook his head, trying to form words with a broken jaw but only succeeded in offering an airy whistle as it passed through the series of broken teeth in his mouth.

Damiano stood and folded his arms behind his back, nodding to Nikki, “You’ve done beautifully, dear, but we’ll take it from here.” He sighed, shaking his head, “I must say, Vailean, I’d wanted to like you—this is not to say that I ever
did
; to be perfectly honest I and many of the other chairs found you to be something of a nuisance—since your father
was
held in such high regards with us.” He shook his head, “But, when Gregori refused the offered chair that you so enthusiastically volunteered for, we were, though disappointed at his decision, hopeful that you—of his own
blood
—would serve to some adequate respect in his honor.”

Zoey and
Maledictus
stared at Damiano in awe.

Gregori had been offered a chair with The Council?

“However, as we’d feared,
honor
is not something you’d know too much about, and while we would have liked nothing better than to see you serve as a feeder, we
do
have an etiquette to abide by,” he shook his head at that, “And, with no reason to bleed you like a wine grape, there was nothing we could do.” He sneered and reached out with his bright yellow aura and pulled Keith to his full height—keeping his toes an inch above the ground—and keeping him conscious despite the growing pain, “‘Incompetent sheep-fuckers’ indeed. You have, to say the least,
disappointed
us, Keith, and, as you will come to find out over the next few months of your sentence, we do not take well to disappointment. This will perhaps go without saying, but you
are
aware of our affinity for protocol.” He nodded to several aurics that had been waiting nearby and glared at Keith as they stepped forward and wrapped him in a reinforced, auric-blocking straightjacket. Thrashing and groaning, they pulled his head back and held his mouth open as Damiano’s aura reached out and tore his fangs from his gums. As the severed teeth slowly floated into the vampire’s hand, the auric guards pushed Keith forward and slipped a metal guard over his bleeding mouth and, using a small drill that one of them drew from their pocket, drove several screws into his jaw to hold it in place to keep him from biting.