The Vampire's Heart (25 page)

But of all those things, only one gives me the hatred to continue, to destroy those that have hurt me. Kellum is the reason, or more technically his betrayal is the reason.

Kellum has set me up; made me a creature of the night, taught me to be the cold blooded killer that my very nature dictates. And for all the trouble he went to, to set the other Lys-Karalis against me, revenge is all that plays on my mind. He will regret the day he found me.

Turning my head, I see Kellum grinning at me. It is usual toothy smile, but it is soon to be broken. I step forward and slide painlessly off the blade, turn to face Kellum, and make a grab for the bloodied blade. I twist it easily from Kellum’s grip. His grin fades so quickly and a stunned look appears in its place. Is he surprised at the defiance of death in my eye, or that a single blow didn’t to kill me? He’s an idiot if it is the latter.

A lightning fast jab to his stomach brings Kellum to his knees, and sends his second dagger skittering across the rooftop. I look down into his face and let out a roar of anger and hatred; it serves only to empower me and diminish his confidence. I throw the dagger to one side and do not hear it land.

Gripping his mouth I force it open, shoving the fingers of my other hand into the dark chasm that houses his sharp teeth. Using my inhuman strength, I pry his jaw away from his skull; a dull crack sounds as the bone breaks.

He begins to scream, showing his weakness. He is a vampire, he should not even feel pain. A second crack tells me the jawbone is completely free. I pull and hear his flesh tearing as the skin is ripped free of his face. I rip his jaw off completely, taking tongue, cheeks and a large chunk of throat with it. His screams become undecipherable.

I lift the jawless Kellum up, looking into his eyes. I drop him and his jaw to the tiles and he just lies there, bloodied, and close to death. So close.

I stand where he lies, covered in his dead blood. In the far distance, over the Gatheck Range, the sun begins its slow morning rise.

Moments later dozens of vampires leave the rooftop, each leaping to the safety of the shadows by the walls; to the safety of darkness.

Now only the seven Lys-Karalis remain, and one soon to be dead vampire.

Now the real battle comes. I draw upon my remaining magic and prepare a spell to destroy demons, using the erstwhile angelic magic granted to me. I unleash it upon myself.

My hands swarm with fire; engulfed by the flame I magically abjure. They catch fire quickly and the caressing flames begin to spread up my arms at an alarming rate. Instantly I cast again. The flesh of my arms starts to regenerate so fast it looks like my skin is living, black and undulating. It writhes between fire and fresh flesh. Soon, only my hands are on fire; the flames kept from spreading by my healing magic.

I look up and react instantly as the other Lys-Karalis charge at me. One of them is just about to reach me. I lash out with my clawed and flaming hand at neck height. My decapitating blow sends his head falling to the roof. It lands, bounces, and rolls off the side to plummet the drop to the cobbles below, trailing bright flame all the while.

My simple plan works perfectly; stop them being able to use their magic and burn them once they cannot heal themselves. I know this works because I just felt that Lys-Karalis die by my hand; he was my equal and I killed him without a thought. It was so easy. I never even knew his name. Not that I care. The rest will follow him to their deaths.

Barely an instant after my first scything cut, I’m ducking a powerful left to right swing by a massive vampire. The muscles beneath his dead skin ripple in the moonlight as he flails his arms. I duck under his left arm and scythe my hand up into his ribs, pushing them aside, and letting the fire consume his insides. I grab a handful of anything and, while ripping it out, my other hand finds its way to his shocked face.

I gouge an eye, hook his skull and drag his head down to smash his cranium on my knee. His caved in skull becomes engulfed by the flame quickly. Its ash begins to blow away in the wind as the two bodies burn hot and bright. I feel this one die too; one more of their number down. There are just the five of us now.

Oddly enough, Kellum did a better job than they are doing. The third and fourth Lys-Karalis will attack me together. Both reach me ahead of the last two. They split and flank me. I turn to the largest of the pair and fend off a clawed hand, which was intended for my face, whilst I draw back my right arm to deliver a counter-strike.

The Lys-Karalis behind me stabs, twists, and pulls free some sort of blade. I get the taste of vampiric blood in my mouth once again as my heart and lungs are further damaged. It is a good job I have no need of my insides.

The Sixteenth Chapter

- Alleil -

13 days until the birth of a god

The 20
^th
day of Spring-Fall, 1538

All I can do is watch and try and get there more quickly to help the others. All the while the demon in the back of my mind is laughing as the twisted and sick individual murders the people I care about. The deranged Lys-Karalis before me moves faster and more viciously that any I’ve ever seen, horribly dispatching Callic with a single blow, only then to take Morren in an even more callous and violent way.

‘
They both deserved it. Neither of them could cut it. They were both weaker than us; we should have done what he is doing long ago. We should have ruled the vampires together,’
the demon inside my says, ever attempting to corrupt me. Thankfully the demons that inhabit we Lys-Karalis cannot vocalise via our physical bodies, so only I can hear Fel, just as only Liesl can hear his demon, and only Callic can... could hear his.

But now is not the time, Fel. Just not now, I need to concentrate.

Luc and I will be the next to tackle him, taking him on in tandem. I only hope that together we can take him out, and if not, I hope to the gods that we can at least hold him off for long enough for Revner and Liesl to join us.

‘
Run away Alleil, this vampire will kill you,’
Fel tells me, breaking what little concentration I have.

And if you keep distracting me we’ll both die.

‘
I’ll go back to Hell. You’ll die.’

You’ll go back to Hell. I’ll move on, I still have a soul. You Fel, you lost yours long ago when you fell from Heaven, I think at the demon that grants me my power.

I head to the corrupt Lys-Karalis’ left hand side while Luc heads to its right. Muzbeth turns to face Luc, exposing his back to me.

‘
Lucky you, you may survive this after all. Provided Luc dies. You could even turn against the others…’

Fuck off Fel! I think, hoping to silence the insistent distraction.

Luc lashes a clawed fist at the face of our enemy only to have it batted away by the vampire. I see Muzbeth’s arm pull back for a powerful blow and instinctively draw my knife and stick him with a twisting jab.

But it has no effect on the creature before me, which punches out with his drawn back arm wreathed in flame. The blow was so powerful it must have been too fast to even dodge.

A massive chunk of dead flesh, bone and brain matter is sheared from the side of Luc’s head, as the contents of his skull catch light.

Those flames spread quickly over his falling corpse. Revner and Liesl won’t be able to help me now. The Lys-Karalis known as Muzbeth starts to turn to face me; all I can do is strike again with my knife. I feel Luc’s soul flit away from his body, moving swiftly onto the next place.

‘
Feel that?’
Fel asks, though I know he does not mean the death of my fellow Lys-Karalis.

Suddenly Muzbeth’s flames gutter out and the flesh of his hands and arms become blackened. The flesh practically drops from his bones and he enters an advanced stage of decay. His lips draw back to expose the vampire’s sharp yellowed teeth, while his nose shrinks to little more than two flat slits. His eyes whiten, though he will still see perfectly. This Lys-Karalis has run out of magic. Maybe I do stand a chance of surviving.

I stab up into his side, sliding the knife under his bottom rib to connect sharply with his spine, which it cuts through, thanks to my vampiric strength.

‘
My strength,’
Fel adds.

Whatever.

He turns his head to look directly at me; my attack has stopped him mid-turn. Muzbeth, obviously angered by his loss, roars into my face. His putrid rotting breath rolls over me, before he quickly backhands me in the chest with a fist. It was so quick I didn’t even have a chance to avoid it.

The blow has broken many ribs and launched me from the roof to fall the long distance to the cobbled floor at the base of the Lighthouse.

As I fall I pass through the Light and cast my falling shadow across half of Gatheck. I have a seventeen hundred foot drop ahead of me. Manoeuvring my limbs I steer my body toward the slightly sloped wall of the Lighthouse; I crash into it and slow myself down dramatically.

Seeing a chimney pot, I push away from the wall with my feet and cause myself to pirouette wildly, though I miss the out-jutting chimney. Steadying myself, I crash into the wall again, slowing my speed once more. As I impact against the white painted stone I feel and hear some of my bones break. I hit the wall once more before the ground rushes up to meet me after what can only have been little more than a moment of falling; ninety instants gone so quickly.

I land heavily with a painful sounding crunch. I did not bother to cast anything protect from the landing; preferring to save my casting power for healing when I need it. I cast out with a tiny mite of magic, assessing my body and the state it is in. Information floods into my mind, and I immediately know what it all means.

About thirty percent of the bones in my body have been broken, about fifty percent shattered, and the rest fractured. One of my eyes no longer works due to part of it being severed by a bone fragment. And all of my teeth are either broken or no longer attached.

Not good, to say the least.

‘
Too fucking right! I guess I’ll have to sort us out?’

Yes, as per usual. I reach down into my magic, drawing it from the demon within me, who in turn gets his from Samael, his god.

Being dead I do not feel pain, but the feeling of a severely broken body being repaired is truly an amazing feeling. To feel bones re-graft and click back into blissful harmony with the rest of your skeletal structure is simply divine. Not that my skeletal structure matters; I have no need for one. My body is powered by magic, allowing me to not depend too much on the physical aspect of my body. Also not being capable of dying from natural causes has its bonuses.

The sight in my left eye clears and the magical energy spent keeping it working gets diverted elsewhere. I doubt Fel was responsible for keeping me working when my body was broken; it would have been more like a natural reaction. Within instants the casting is complete, and my body is back in prime condition.

‘
You could just leave now. That’d be easiest,’
Fel says,
‘and you’d survive which is a bonus for you. You know you’re scared of him; that’s why you didn’t cast wings to return immediately to help Liesl and Revner. You got lucky, Alleil.’

“
Shut up Fel. It is sunrise soon so go back into your little dark box and leave me in peace,” I say aloud, albeit in a hushed tone.

A scream comes from off to my right, around the other side of the Lighthouse. I do not recognise the voice. I sharpen and harden my fingernails, and latch onto the wall.

I am once again hauling myself up the white walls of the Lighthouse. My freshly repaired body feels strong and new, which makes scaling the steep tower seem so easy.

As I clamber onto the tiled rooftop the sun breaks the horizon. I feel Fel return to the place from whence he came, which leaves my mind with a distinctive peace. I get to my feet and look for Muzbeth.

A shaft of brilliant white light erupts from the sun and strikes the severely wounded Kellum, whose demonic soul is ripped out and cast back into the depths of Hell, leaving only the dried, yet mangled, corpse. I’ve seen this happen only a few times before, when a newly turned vampire hasn’t been able to get into cover from the sun in time. It is the most painful way to go for a vampire. Kellum will have suffered far more than he should have.

I glance around at the battleground. My eyes survey the devastating scene arrayed upon the early-morning yellow washed roof. Muzbeth is gone and Luc is dead. He, Callic, and Morren are now nothing but dust in the wind.

Only three of the vampire Lys-Karalis can fight for their race. As I look into Liesl and Revner’s sad eyes I know that not all of us will make it out of this alive. Three have fallen back into death already. More of us will surely follow. Either that or the monster that started all of this will wipe us all out.

Something moves on the ground in front of me.

- Muzbeth -

I pull out the knife imbedded in my side and wield it, assessing its weight and balance, and then fling it, deciding that it’s useless. The dagger sails from my grasp and disappears between two chimneystacks, and over the edge to fall down into the courtyard thousands of feet below.