A Shade of Vampire 26: A World of New (14 page)

I
had lost
all sense of how long I had been swimming for. It could’ve been days, maybe even weeks. I was sure that I had swallowed too much of this salty water as I drifted. My mind was not its sharpest.

I had swum too far away from The Woodlands in my escape from Brucella. I’d been trying to swim back, but I’d lost my way. I could no longer even see The Woodlands’ familiar outline in the distance. But if I kept swimming, I assured myself, I would spy land eventually. I just needed to keep pushing on. Keep moving. In spite of how drained my body was beginning to feel. In spite of how hunger and thirst clawed at my insides. In spite of the dizziness overtaking my brain.

I might have lost everything else, but I still had my home country. It was my family. My friend. My constant companion ever since I had been born. And it needed me.
The Woodlands
needs
me.

I was beginning to feel delirious. So much time in the ocean without shelter, and with the sun beating down on my head, perhaps had given me some form of sunstroke. My vision was hazy.

Just keep going.

Keep going…

Night fell again, and I transformed into a wolf. It was beginning to register in my addled mind that I might not have many more nights left if I did not reach solid ground soon.

But, as if the heavens had finally smiled down upon me, several hours later that night, I spied land.
Land!
A rush of excitement surged through my brain, igniting my limbs with energy I’d thought I had lost. I took in the sight hungrily, greedily, like the starving man I was. My first thought was that it must be The Woodlands.

But then reality dawned on me.

This was not The Woodlands. There were not enough trees, for one thing. But, still, it was land. A land I could maybe find water and food on, and rest until I could stand to reenter the water again to continue my quest for my own country.

Kicking rapidly with my legs, I swam as fast as I could toward the shore. The distance was deceptive, however. When I had first spotted the land, it seemed much closer. The waves were also rough and powerful, which slowed me down. Still, I fixed my eyes determinedly on the shore, glimmering like an oasis beneath the moonlight. It was drawing closer, slowly but surely.

My right foot kicked down hard against something slimy. I barely had time to look down and check what it was before an explosion of pain rocketed up my leg.

I cried out, my eyes shooting downward. Beneath the waves, a giant pair of jaws had closed around my right hind leg. It was some kind of black, rubbery-skinned water beast, with teeth about twice the size of a werewolf’s. It had a strange flap of cartilage poking out the top of its back, a long, jagged tail, and two fins at its front. I had never seen anything like it before. I had not spent enough time at sea.

Blood was staining the water fast. Extending my claws, I thrashed at the beast’s face, tearing and ripping at its slimy rubbery skin, until it became nothing but shreds of flesh. The monster released me before falling away into the depths of the ocean.

But my leg. I wondered if the animal had punctured an artery. I had never experienced such acute pain in all my life. I was swimming in my own blood by now, and more was pooling at an alarming pace.

I looked desperately toward the land. If there were more creatures like that roaming these waters, surely they would all sense my blood now.
I have to reach that beach.

Whatever strength I’d recovered on sighting the shore was ebbing out of me with every gush of blood. I forced myself onward, having only three legs at my disposal.

I was half blind by the time I felt sand beneath my paws. My breathing was heavy and belabored, every movement an epic feat. I crawled out of the water and dragged myself across the sand, even as I left a trail of blood behind me. I needed to find somewhere sheltered. Somewhere out of sight. And do what, I did not know. I was not a warlock. I could not heal this kind of wound. I tried not to think too much about it. Maybe the heavens would smile down on me once more, and it would heal itself.

I reached a stretch of jungle that bordered the beach and drew myself in among the trees. I collapsed in the undergrowth, wheezing and panting.

The ground beneath me quickly became wet from my blood, but I felt too weak now to get up and move to a dry patch. I just sat where I was, my head lowered and resting on my two front paws. Images of the past two weeks flashed in my mind. Before the night of my family’s murder, but mostly after. Mostly images of Victoria…

My brain felt like it was slowly shutting down, less wired to the agony in my leg. My senses were calming.

Maybe the pain is leaving me after all.

Or maybe… I am leaving the pain.

W
e spent
many days being led by the werewolves on a search through The Woodlands.

They first took us to the northernmost tip of the land, where we split into three groups, making sure that there were adequate dragons, witches and jinn among each. Then we embarked on a hunt for more IBSI men. We discovered countless other wolf packs along the way, who agreed to join our search party. And together we discovered several more bases of hunters, although none of them were as well set up as the first one we had destroyed. These were all makeshift bases, set up within the raided lairs of werewolves. We stormed all of them, eradicating every hunter present. Once we reached the southernmost tip of The Woodlands, we were fairly confident that we had disinfected this realm of the tyrants.

Now the matter remained of Bastien’s traitorous cousin and uncle. We had decided to leave that until last. Although this was a job that the werewolves had already agreed to undertake alone, still, we accompanied them to the Blackhalls’ mountain just in case some other hunters had taken shelter there with them. A group of fifty werewolves swept through the mountain like a raging tsunami. The execution of Detrius and his uncle took place in the grand court itself, where they had been sitting at the time we had stormed in. Detrius never knew what hit him. One minute he had been sitting aloft on his throne, the next he was on the floor, his crown ripped from his head and daggers raining down into his chest. They were no less merciful to the uncle, even though he was blind.

As for the rest of the mountain castle’s inhabitants, the only people we knew for certain were allied with the hunters were Detrius and his uncle. Thus, unlike the IBSI, the werewolves were noble enough to decide that the best course of action would be to hold an investigation to discover who was innocent and who was not… rather than go on a rampage slaughtering them all. Children, of course, would be excluded.

As the werewolves began their interrogations, it was time for me and my people to leave. But before we did, the chieftains of every werewolf tribe insisted on thanking us personally.

“I speak for all of us when I say that you have our allegiance and loyalty for life,” one said—a recent recruit whose name I didn’t know. “Whatever you need us for, and whenever you need us, do not hesitate to ask.”

Every other chieftain nodded in agreement, calling out similar expressions of gratitude.

During our sweeping search through The Woodlands, we had gathered with us almost every single tribe according to the Cuthral leader—at least, every tribe that had survived the hunters’ assaults. The chieftains surrounding me had grown from about forty to almost two hundred.

Thus I found myself standing before the rulers of The Woodlands’ population. Here they were, bowing to us and offering their unconditional allegiance.

An idea struck me like a flash of lightning.

My, my, my… we might really have something here. Something quite extraordinary.

Before taking our leave, I made sure to look all the leaders firmly in the eye, and say, “I will be taking you up on that offer.”

A
s our dragons
shifted back into their beastly forms outside the Blackhalls’ mountain, I thought about our next step. Our plan was to return to the ogres’ kingdom, where we had yet more hunters to deal with. We had spotted one base already just by coincidence as we had been flying past. I wondered how many others they might have erected there.

But before we began that task, we needed to return through the portal to
our
base. Our chopper-cum-tank,
Nightshade
. We had to replenish our supplies, refresh ourselves and rest a while before tackling the IBSI again. The past few days had been long and tiring, even for a vampire.

Derek and I climbed atop Ridan. Derek sat behind his neck, while I sat behind Derek. I wrapped my arms around my husband’s waist and pressed my cheek against his back as we lifted into the air.

Derek was in a quiet mood. Contemplative. I thought back on the last words he had exchanged with the werewolves. He’d told them he would definitely be calling upon their help. I still wasn’t sure exactly what he’d meant by it.

“Are you okay?” I asked him, planting a kiss between his shoulder blades.

“Yes,” he murmured.

“What are you thinking?”

He let out a long, slow breath before he replied, “I’m thinking about why the IBSI is even needed in the first place. It’s because
we
are too small, too insignificant, in the face of Earth’s problems.” He cast a fleeting glance over his shoulder back in the direction of The Woodlands. “But just like that, we rallied an entire population of supernaturals willing to lay down their lives to help us…”

My pulse quickened as I sensed where Derek’s thoughts were leading.

“What if we managed to do that with more populations? More races?” he went on, passion rising in his voice. He twisted on the dragon’s back so that his piercing, electric-blue eyes could look directly into mine. “What if we could make the IBSI obsolete? What if we formed a cyclopean, supernatural army that was willing to become the guardians the hunters are
supposed
to be?”

I drew in a breath as his words sank in. Despite the overwhelming influx of supernaturals in the human realm, most remained in their home realms in the supernatural dimension. Most were not troublemakers. They were just normal citizens, keeping to themselves in their own lives and their own countries. In exchange for our freeing their realms from the hunters, if they could agree to take responsibility for their countrymen and women who’d come to cause trouble on Earth and work to quell them… it was an absolutely brilliant idea. If enough of them came through, surely they could overpower the troublemakers.

“Derek,” I breathed. “That would be… a miracle.”

“Not such a miracle,” Derek replied. “Gaining those werewolves’ loyalty was hard work, but straightforward enough.”

I nodded. Truth be told, I was taken aback by how sincerely the werewolves had offered their help and how quickly they’d been able to overcome their differences when it came to the safety of their home country.

“Granted, not all creatures are as noble,” Derek went on. “Some species like the merfolk just seem to be nasty and bad-tempered by nature. I doubt species of their temperament would agree to any of this even if we swooped down and saved their necks, but then again, desperation has a way of changing one’s nature.”

“Derek.” Vivienne spoke up from the back of the dragon behind us. “You are onto something, brother.” Her face had brightened with excitement.

Of course, although Derek and I had been having a one-on-one conversation, we were flying close to everyone else—most of whom had a heightened sense of hearing. Everybody had overheard and was looking at us with a similar expression to that in Vivienne’s eyes.

“It will not be easy, of course,” Derek emphasized. “God knows how many obstacles we will meet along the way. I must think on it more in the days to come—we must all think on it carefully, before submitting a proposal to the werewolves. We need to consider all the possible pitfalls, especially involving the IBSI, now that we have declared outright war with them.”

The IBSI. Something told me that whatever obstacles lay ahead of us, that organization would be the cause of many. I could not believe that they would just stop their immoral activities and encroachment. Even after the massacre we had just executed. There were too many of them. And whatever man or woman was truly in charge of the IBSI—for that remained a mystery to us to this day—had a heart of stone and blood of molten steel.

But if we played our cards right, and rallied an army of epic proportions, we could do this.
I know we can do this.
A world where the IBSI was no longer needed, where they had no more work to perform, no excuse whatsoever to continue going about their activities, would be a much happier one. But more importantly, the hunters had proven themselves incapable of actually solving Earth’s problems—if anything they were bent on aggravating them by beginning to disturb innocent supernaturals minding their own business in their own territories. If we forged enough alliances, we could potentially solve the crisis.

I couldn’t remember the last time I had felt so excited. All of us were, our eyes bright and starry, infused with optimism. The journey passed in no time as we mulled over the idea and imagined an Earth in which peace reigned. Harmony. Cooperation. We would no longer be a society ruled by fear or boundaries.

Before we knew it, the ogres’ kingdom had come into view, and we were nearing its shores. As the dragons circled, searching for the stretch of beach where the portal was located, Micah called out, “Look down there.”

Our eyes shot toward where he was pointing. With my vampire vision, even from this distance, I was able to make it out clearly. A stripe of dark reddish-brown trailing from the waves to a patch of bushes and trees.

My first assumption was that it was blood. Perhaps the ogres had caught some monster and dragged it across the sand back to the kingdom to eat.

But Micah said, “While we’re here, do you think we should see what it is? It wasn’t there when we passed by this way on our journey to The Woodlands.”

I exchanged glances with Derek, then shrugged. I did not see any particular reason to go and check it out—this was the ogres’ stomping ground after all, where bloodshed was a part of their everyday life. But since we were planning on taking a break anyway before storming the IBSI again, we were in no particular hurry. And Micah obviously had some interest in it. Derek agreed, and the dragons descended.

We all remained seated on the fire-breathers, while Micah leapt down and approached the trail of blood. He sniffed it and his brows furrowed. “Familiar,” he murmured, before he began following the trail toward the shrubbery that lined the beach.

He sped up to a run and disappeared from view behind a bush.

“Micah?” Rose called, after a minute had passed in his absence. “What are you doing?”

When he emerged about another minute later, we all gasped in unison—Vivienne loudest. For flung over his shoulders was a wounded, unconscious man.
Bastien.