THE VROL TRILOGY (41 page)

Liliana gasped and looked up, her face
defiant, as the looming vampire created a shadow over her small
face.

"Now you die, dog scum."

His arm slammed down in a flash, as the girl
screamed.

###

"Greetings, old friend. How are you?"
Draagh asked Socrates.

"If what you ask regards my well-being, as I
am technically not a being, then nothing has changed. Query: Are
you attempting to send Marnn's staff to another world?"

"I am indeed. You are aware of the law."

"Yes, my Lord. Data is not to be saved. The
staff shall be lost until its next user is attracted to its
frequency."

"That is correct. Would you be so kind as to
verify the four-dimensional coordinates and make sure that I am not
sending this to the center of a sun, or into a black hole?"

Socrates slowly spun to port, as he usually
did while computing data, especially the Kamiliak Equation. When he
was done, he slowly came to a stop, errant particles flowing back
into the floating mask.

"The equation is complete, my Lord. The
ghanlo shall be safe."

"You are not to save this data, so states the
law."

"That is correct my Lord. However, data is
energy, and energy is never permanently lost -it is simply
repurposed."

Draagh sighed, and looked to the stars.
He knew not where he was sending the ghanlo, but he was certain it
would not be located until it was meant to be found, and hopefully,
the new owner would not fall to darkness, as his now-banished
brother had done. He pushed a symbol on his infoscreen and Marnn's
staff vanished from site with a small popping sound.

He then turned and raced down the
pathway to the closest stairway, while Socrates dissolved from
view.

###

Mere nanoseconds before the ghoul's
blade reached young Liliana's head, its trajectory was altered, and
passed harmlessly by her shoulder. Liliana, who had bravely kept
her eyes open in defiance, watched as two copper-colored hands had
grasped the enemy creature's neck, and then twisted it more than
180 degrees around, snapping it and ending the man's
life.

He dropped to the floor with a heavy
thud, a completely naked Jennie Escalante standing over his corpse
and tiredly looking down at it.

Liliana rushed up to Jennie's cell,
getting the woman her clothing that had been hung on a wooden dowel
on the wall.

"Jennie! Jennie! You are ok! I came for
you. I was so worried! There are vampires in the
castle!"

Jennie groggily lifted her head and
groaned, "No kidding," she said, looking down at the dead body on
the ground. "How many are there?"

"I do not know, but there are many. The
ghouls came and Draagh and Krynos and Donus have been fighting
them, but they need help."

Jennie looked around, getting her head
together as she regained her senses.

"Liliana, did you blast me with the
gauntlet?"

"Yes…" She hesitated, afraid that she
was going to be scolded.

"Great, you remembered! You are such a
smart girl. Ok, now do it to Max."

"Really? You want me to?"

"Yeah, and blast him good. Boys need to
be shocked more."

Liliana got a devilish grin on her
face, and standing back, she uttered the same cantus as before, but
this time she kept the gauntlet trained on her target a little
longer, not knowing that what Jennie had told her was an
exaggeration - the woman just wanted to see Max get jolted a
bit.

Max's lupine body was blasted into the
back wall with a concussive force that even startled the woman. The
werewolf was lying on the ground with not only smoke emanating from
his wound where the little girl had pointed her weapon, but he was
actually on fire. Luckily, the flames quickly dissipated once his
changing form shed the fur that had covered his canid form.
Unfortunately, the rancid smell of burnt fur and flesh
remained.

"Um, shit… I think maybe that was a bit
too much, sweetie."

"Oh, Jennie. Did I hurt
him? And what does it mean, this
shit
?"

"Erm, he'll be fine, and uh… it
means…um, just don't say it, ok?"

"Ok," said the little girl, while
smiling broadly.

Max regained his senses and looked up
as the lock on his cell door released with a loud clunking sound.
Standing up, he saw Jennie and Liliana staring at him. It took him
a moment to realize he was stark naked. Jennie was eyeing him
appraisingly, but Liliana looked at him with a face of slight
disgust because he was, after all, a boy in her eyes. Max thought
this was incredibly unfair, as he had been denied the opportunity
to witness Jennie in her full glory earlier in the
evening.

"Wow, not bad, Max, not bad," she said
as she wiggled her eyebrows.

"Oh, shut it, Jennie. Hey, are we
done?"

"Um, no, Max. Liliana knocked us out of
phase 3 with my power gauntlet - apparently the castle has been
attacked by vampires."

"Oh, that's what hurt… Holy shit!
Vampires?"

"Jennie, why can Max
say
shit,
but I
cannot?"

"I'll explain later, sweetie. Max, we
gotta get up above. We need weapons."

Max put on his tunic and trousers and
walked out of his cell, grabbing his shoes, which were placed on
the ground out front by the central barrier (to keep him from
sniffing and chewing on his own shoes while in phase 3). He looked
at a huge cabinet on the near wall, and bounding over to it, threw
the doors open, finding it packed full of swords.

Calling back, he said, "Hey Liliana,
wake some other people up. Just start doing whatever you did to me!
Just not as hard… please."

"Yay! Cool shit!"

"Liliana, honey, we don't use the word
that way."

"Actually, Jennie, that was pretty
good."

"Shut up, Max!"

The sweet little girl from future-past
just smiled back at the beautiful dega, and then turned her
attention back toward the cages. With a wicked grin she started
zapping every werewolf she saw, while Max grabbed their katanas
from the cabinet. Once the first lycan awoke - a lieutenant named
Roy - Jennie briefed him on the situation and the need to get
everyone up above. Roy stated he would take care of forming a
battle group, and would go up top shortly. He then turned to
supervise the recently awoken, while looking for potential
crashers. Wishing each other good luck, Max went for the stairs,
but Jennie called him out, asking him to hold on for a
moment.

Turning to her little friend, Jennie
said, "Liliana - what you did was very brave, but also dangerous.
How did you get down here?"

"I climbed down through little
corridors in the walls."

"Ah, the ventilation and access tunnels
- very smart. I am so proud of you, but now I need you to hide. Can
you hide?"

The little pigtailed lycan nodded
enthusiastically.

"Very good - hide and don't come out
until the sun rises, ok sweetie?"

"Ok!"

Jennie gently helped Liliana to slip
the gauntlet off her hand, and then placed it on her own. Turning
and running for the stairs, Max took the cue and headed up in the
lead. As they had both eaten while in death form, they had ample
reserves, but knew they would need to stuff something else in their
mouths if they were to last until the sun rose.

Reaching the first floor, Max and
Jennie quickly dispatched a group of bottom-tier vampire soldiers
with their katanas, soaking the floor with copious amounts of
blood. They then ran through the main hall, Jennie stopping near
some piles of ash, which captured her curiosity.

"I wonder what this is?" she
queried.

"They were vampires, but were killed
with platinum or palladium. Even rhodium or iridium - all the same
metal family."

"What's the difference? Why are they
ash? I mean, when I kill with my sword they just bleed
out."

"The molecular composition
of anything from the platinum family operates on a vibrational
frequency antagonistic to the salubots that flow in our system.
That's why it hurts when lycans touch platinum or palladium, but
with vampires, the metal makes
their
bots to freak out and
basically causes them to self-immolate - if the metal makes contact
with their blood."

"Oh wow, I knew it hurt them, but had
no idea it made them burn up. And Earth fiction said that silver
was painful to werewolves. Funny, huh?"

"Yeah, silver. Right," said
Max.

They both chuckled for a moment, and
then concentrated on the sounds and smells of the immediate area.
The scents of vampires, lycans and, unfortunately, some dead
normals littered the air, giving Max and Jennie ample indication of
where to go next. Suddenly, and without warning, two werewolves
leaped over the hall, going from one side of the mezzanine to the
other, startling Jennie.

"Don't worry, they're wearing Draagh's
armor, so they have brains," said Max, noting Jennie's alarmed
expression.

"They're onto something. Leave them,
and let's go join the fun outside."

But before they could get out the
doorway to the courtyard, a massive throng of vampires that had
waited on the perimeter of the castle during the invasion rushed
them. These were not lower-caste sacrificial soldiers, but
mid-level troops, and they had the experience to match.

Jennie and Max immediately converted to
their battle form, which instantly doubled their strength. Lycans
in day form were already on par with the average vampire - but
these were not average vampires. They were stronger than their
inferior brothers.

Nearly overwhelmed by the sheer numbers
of rotting troops, Max and Jennie slashed and hacked their way
toward the doorway, but each time they seemed to get close they
were pushed back by a counterattack. Max threw numerous UV light
cantuses, debilitating roughly half the vampires in the hall, but
it was a major mistake, as he had nearly depleted his yellow line,
and only had room for two more cantuses before he would suffer a
substantial timeout period. His inexperience in battle was proving
to be his undoing. To fight two or three vampires in an open field
was one thing, but dozens of attacking mid and high-level troops in
an enclosed space was something he had never trained nor accounted
for.

Suffering numerous bites and scratches,
the two lycans were depleting resources at an astounding rate. If a
vampire were to bite a lycan there would be no risk of infection,
as they lycan virus basically fights off and eliminates the
invading organisms, just as the vampire virus fights off that of
the lycan when the tables are turned. Still, the wounds they were
suffering taxed them severely, as was evident by their shrinking
health lines in their peripheral readouts.

Separated from each other
for the first time in a battle, Max was overcome with rage and
despair. He needed to get to Jennie and fight to keep the enemy off
her, but the harder he tried to get through to her the further away
he was pushed. He continued to kick, punch and hack the enemy with
his katana and all of his enhanced strength, but was unable to get
into position and deliver fatal blows.


Taking an incredible chance, he
levitated himself up over the crowd and saw Jennie back in the
corner of the room being beaten savagely, with blood all over her
face and clothing, as she used part of a broken table as a
makeshift shield.

He couldn't use a gravecantus to blow
off her attackers because he would injure her at the same time - he
just didn't have the experience to be able to pick and choose who
precisely was affected by his magical skills, especially in the
case of an area-wide attack, as was the gravecantus. It was all he
could do to protect her with a simple shield - one that kept her
from being stabbed by an errant blade, but could not relieve her of
the mounting pressure that pushed her back into a corner. He then
decided to float over and try to pull her out. If he could not, he
would drop down in the crowd and be by her side no matter the
outcome. Quickly gliding over, he tried to reach down and grab her
hand as she reached up to him, calling his name out, with a look of
terror painted on her normally beautiful face.

She was going to die. Right there - in
front of him.

He failed to grab her hand, and seeing
she had a knife sticking out of her arm and was about to go down
for the last time, he did the only thing he could.

If Jennie dies, she dies in
my arms and I'll go with her.

Max dropped down into the
crowd and desperately hacked and slashed his way to her side.
Pulling out his smaller sword, called a
tachi
, he did all he could to keep
the attacking troops away from the woman, taking the brunt of their
abuse and trying to give her precious seconds to live.

All seemed lost, with everything going by in
agonizingly slow motion. As he fought harder and harder while
keeping his back pressed up against Jennie and making sure she was
pinned back into the corner, he started to lose consciousness. The
edges of his vision started to fade to black - his existence was
ending right there. With Jennie behind him and in a final moment of
desperation he executed a gravecantus, pushing back nearly all of
the attacking soldiers - only to see them bound back up and attack
again.