Dread Nemesis of Mine (28 page)

"They don't need flamethrowers with me
around," Adam said, brandishing his staff. He gestured, and a
glowing white ball hovered in the air before him. With a wave, he
sent it inside the room.

Something roared. A vampling lunged from the
doorway.

Michael's sword flashed, cutting the thing's
arms off before it could reach Adam. The Arcane jumped back with a
shout.

More snarls echoed as Adam's globe of light
hovered a few feet inside the doorframe.

"Turn it off!" Fausta hissed.

It blinked out.

"It's not the light," Michael said. "They
smell our blood."

Pattering feet sounded from within.
Shuffles, heaves, and groans built into a growing cacophony as the
monsters felt the draw of the life force pumping through our veins
and homed in on it.

"Positions," Fausta commanded, readying her
sword.

Michael took up a position opposite her
while Elyssa took up the center.

The creatures attacked in a mob. Fausta and
Michael butchered scores of them as they reached the door, forced
back only by the volume of bodies as they stacked up at the
door—dismembered heads, arms, and legs thrashing thanks to the
unholy magic giving them false life.

I took a few steps back down the hall toward
the spiral staircase to give the Templars more room. Adam growled
out a command and shot a fireball from his staff. It turned the
fallen bodies into a roiling pyre. The sickly sweet odor of burning
flesh filled the air.

Something cold grabbed my ankle and jerked.
I tumbled backwards down the stairs, rolling to a stop partway
down. A sharp agonizing pain lanced into my calf. I jerked my leg,
but failed to free it. A rush of fire seared my veins, seeming to
catch my entire body on fire. I looked up and saw with horror the
source of the agony.

A vampling, feasting on my blood.

Unlike the sensation when Maximus had fed
upon me, there was no pleasure whatsoever from the vampling bite.
Only pain and agony. Using every last ounce of willpower, I bent
back my other leg and kicked the thing's head.

Something cracked. The creature's head
snapped back at a terrible angle. Slammed into the curved wall. The
vampling pushed off it, landed on all fours, and hissed. A pair of
broken glasses dangled from its nose. A soccer T-shirt and shorts,
torn and bloody were the only other reminders of the humanity the
undead creature had once possessed.

Despite the withdrawal of its fangs, the
agony in my veins persisted. Desperation lent me the strength to
roll backwards down the stairs while the vampling, running on hands
and feet like an animal, chased me. I tried to lurch to my feet.
Dizziness pulled me back to the floor. I resorted to crawling as
the venom in my blood betrayed all sense of balance.

Cold hands gripped me. The vampling's teeth
went for my ankle. A frightened yelp escaped me as I jerked my foot
free and kicked my pursuer in the head. The kick propelled me
head-over-heels, backwards down the remaining stairs. At the
bottom, I hit the wall to the side of the stairwell. The hilt of my
sword clanged against the stone. Somewhere during my flight, I'd
lost the assault rifle. Bracing my back on the stone surface, I
pushed to my feet, drew my sword, and turned right to face my
attacker.

The vampling snarled. Dove at me.

Reflex kicked in. I dodged to the left.
Swept my sword down in a cutting motion. Steel met bone, cleaving
through it like hot butter. One of the vampling's arms flopped to
the ground. I jerked my sword from the creature's ribs and sliced
down again and again, chopping the thing into bits.

A groan sounded in the hallway behind
me.

I spun and faced two more undead. Steadier
on my feet now, I mustered all my strength and sliced both their
heads off in one clean sweep. Reversed my swing and took off their
legs. More groans warned of another attack. Vamplings shambled out
of the room where Maximus had strapped me down like an animal.
Horror, hatred, and anger suffused my heart and burned into my
veins.

Even more creatures appeared behind me. I
had nowhere to go.

Fear vanished, erased by the certainty that,
here, I would die. Blinding anger burned through the fear, boiling
into fury.

"
Xhi kakini xhe keyalla!"
I shouted
in a guttural voice.
I will kill you all
!

Demonic instinct overwhelmed me, and my
sword flashed like lightning among my enemies.

"Justin?" A warm hand caressed my jaw.

My eyes fluttered open. I flinched back with
a shout.

"It's me, Justin. Elyssa."

"Holy Mary, what happened down here?" Fausta
looked around the room, eyes wide. Blood spattered her face and
clothing, but she otherwise looked no worse for wear.

I held out a blood-coated hand to Elyssa.
She pulled me to my feet. I felt weak, but not completely drained.
Dismembered, twitching bodies lay everywhere. Dark vampling blood
covered the floor in a spreading lake of death.

"I don't remember." Pressing my hands to my
head, I tried to recall the battle, but found only fleeting images
and roars. Had I manifested into my demon form? My sword lay at my
feet, and the bodies looked as though I'd run them down with a
lawnmower.

"Remind me not to piss you off," Fausta
said. She looked up the spiral stairs. "I think we're done
here."

I followed her and Elyssa up the stairs,
still feeling woozy and disoriented. The gagging stench of charred
flesh and hair made me double over as I neared the top. It was all
I could do to push it away as my supernatural senses soaked it all
in.

A gentle breeze carried the smoke toward the
chamber from which the vamplings had come. Adam, his face sweaty
and covered in soot, appeared to be the source of the wind, his
staff waving in circles. When he saw us, he stopped, mouth dropping
open as he looked at me.

I looked down and noticed my blood-soaked
clothing and my crimson hands. "Oh, god."

Michael, his own face splotched here and
there with red, raised an eyebrow. "What happened?"

"He went crazy or something and killed—I
don't know—twenty vamplings?" Fausta shook her head. "It was hard
to tell with all the body parts."

Michael nodded his head toward the stairs.
"Is it clear down there?"

Elyssa took my hand and squeezed. "Yes."

"What about in there?" I pointed at the
chamber beyond the red door.

Michael nodded. "Looks like it. We were
about to go check it out."

Adam sent a globe of light inside the room.
Piles of roasted bodies and dismembered limbs lay at the entrance
and beyond. A tar-like substance I identified as burnt blood
covered the floor.

"I really don't want to go in there," Fausta
said with a shudder. "Maybe we should wait on the Custodians."

Taking a deep breath, and instantly
regretting it, thanks to the odor, I stepped past the charred
bodies and inside the room. If the cells in the tunnels had been
where the former dungeon wards had kept most of the prisoners, this
room must have been where they put the vilest criminals, or at
least the ones they wanted to suffer the most.

The room was large and filled with crude
torture devices. They looked old, rusted, and unusable. Along the
edges of the room were windowless, iron doors. I heard a moan and
jumped back, ripping my sword from its sheath. The weak moan came
again. I looked around the room, but couldn't find the source. Then
I looked up. Cages hung from the ceiling by thick chains. In the
glow of Adam's light, I made out a pale form lying in a heap inside
one of them.

It groaned.

"Lower the cage," Michael said. "We need to
burn it with the others."

A crank on the wall secured the chain. I
spun it around, lowering the cage as the poor creature inside
moaned. The cage clanked to the floor. A thick padlock secured the
barred door.

"I've got it," Adam said, touching his staff
to it. The padlock snapped open a few seconds later.

The cage door squealed open with a firm pull
of my hand. The vampling huddled in the fetal position, shivering
under a pile of blood-stained clothes.

"That's odd," I said.

Michael grabbed at some loose cloth and
dragged the vampling out. Let go and backed away. The body
sprawled. Red eyes looked up into mine from a blood-stained face.
Blackened veins riddled the skin, writhing like snakes beneath the
surface. I gasped and dropped to a knee.

"Help me," the infected vampire rasped.
"Please, Justin."

I stared in horror at the vampire. At the
young woman I knew. At Felicia.

Adam cried out. His staff clattered to the
floor as he fell to his knees beside me. "Felicia! Oh, god. What
the hell did Maximus do to you? That son of a bitch!"

She gripped his shirt with a pale hand
already darkening with infection. "Adam?" She smiled. Shuddered and
gasped. "Brother, you're here?"

"For you, sis. I came for you."

"You—you finally came for me." A tear
trickled down her cheek.

Tears poured down Adam's face. He bent over
his sister and hugged her tight as agonized cries tore from his
throat. "All my fault. All my fault. Don't leave me, Felicia.
Please don't die."

She sucked in a breath as her body bucked
with spasms. "You have to kill me. No choice."

"Isn't there anything we can do?" I asked
Michael. "Some kind of Templar cure?"

He looked on, his eyes troubled. "I'm
sorry."

Elyssa appeared in the doorway, holding
Meghan in her arms. She set her down. "She's over there. Please try
to help."

Meghan knelt, placing a hand over Felicia's
forehead. Eyes full of tears, she looked at Adam and shook her
head. "There is no cure. Nothing I can do."

"Can my blood do anything?" I asked. "Like
it helped Stacey with the hellhound venom?"

"I'm afraid not," Meghan said. She wiped the
moisture from her eyes and took Felicia's hand.

"Take care of my brother," Felicia said.
"Marry him and keep him out of trouble. He's a handful."

Meghan sniffed and nodded. "I will."

"He'll blame himself. Always does." Felicia
sucked in a harsh breath. "Not his fault. I…made choices."

"I should have been there for you," Adam
said.

"Love you anyway," she said, panting as pain
filled her eyes.

Wiping away the cloud of moisture in my own
eyes, I stood up and walked away, anger boiling within. Why had I
let her go off by herself? Why hadn't I insisted she stay with me
and Katie? Wasn't there someone who could stop this infection? Cure
her?

Daelissa!

The insane angel somehow prevented Templars
from succumbing to the virus. Could she cure them? The question was
moot. She didn't give a crap about saving anyone, only about
restoring the rule of her people by any means necessary. But there
was another person who might be able to help. First, I'd have to
find her. I looked at Felicia's slim figure, writhing as it battled
the vampling curse, losing inch by inch.

"Meghan." I touched her shoulder and pulled
her aside to leave Adam still hugging his sister.

"Yes, Justin?" She wiped her red nose with a
tissue.

"I think—hope—I know someone who can cure
her."

She shook her head. "It's not possible,
Justin. We've tried to find a cure in the past, but it just doesn't
exist. The vampling curse is the blackest part of the vampire
curse, dark and ancient magic far beyond arcane knowledge."

"If Daelissa can inoculate Templars against
it, maybe she can heal the virus."

"After what you've uncovered about her, why
would she help?" Meghan shook her head. "She's mad."

"No, not her. There's another."

Meghan's eyes widened. "The dark angel?"

"Nightliss."

The Arcane considered this information for a
moment. "She helped you defeat Vadaemos. She's very powerful."

"I think she can cure Felicia, but I need
time to find her."

Meghan's eyes narrowed. "Why would Nightliss
leave you? If she's so powerful, why isn't she here helping right
now? Do you know how many lives we could have saved?"

"I get the feeling there's a lot more going
on than just me," I said. "It took everything she had the last time
she helped. For all I know, she's recovering."

A sigh escaped her lips. "Well, whatever her
reasons, I hope they're good ones. All I can give you is more
time." Meghan looked at Felicia and shook her head. "But it won't
be much. Days at most." She gripped her wand and seemed to steel
herself with a deep breath. "I'd better do it now."

I walked over to Adam and placed a hand on
his shoulder. "We might have a chance at beating this." I took
Felicia's hand in mine and offered her a hopeful smile. "I'm going
to find Nightliss. Just hang in there, okay?"

"You really think there's a chance?" Felicia
asked, hope rising in her pained voice.

I squeezed her hand. "There's always
hope."

Meghan waved me and Adam away, kneeling
behind Felicia, and putting the petite vampire's head in her lap.
Murmuring in a low voice, she stroked the wand through the air over
Felicia's body while the rest of us stood and watched. A gentle
white glow settled around Adam's sister, and her convulsing body
went limp and relaxed, eyes closing as if in the bliss of relief
from pain.

By the time she'd finished, Custodians had
appeared, wearing large silver tanks on their backs like something
out of an old sci-fi movie.

"What are those for?" I asked Michael.

"Quicksilver."

"I can't believe they have that much of it,"
Elyssa said as she came to stand next to us.

"This is probably all of it," Michael said.
"Nobody knows how to make it anymore, or where to find the
ingredients."