Rather than blue, the crystals in this hall were a solemn, bloody red, the stone vaults of a different shape with less ornamentation. As the hall lit, the passage they’d come from disappeared, blue crystals flashing out to darkness as the hall narrowed – leaving only the circular node with the bloody passage ahead. As if the passage behind had never existed, Layla felt a sudden disorientation, like the tunnel she faced now was the same one they’d come through, despite the color and architectural differences. It gave her a feeling of panic, as if she was utterly lost in the bowels of the earth. Her heartbeat sped, a flush of bourbon-orange scent washing from her as her Dragon bristled.
Curling her close, Dusk poured a soothing rumble through her. “Easy, Layla. Try to stay calm down here. Scents of fear draw the attention of things we don’t want to face right now.”
“Like what?” Layla cuddled close to Dusk.
“Like you don’t want to find out what.” Dusk growled. “Come on. We need to move.”
But Layla’s Dragon was positively bristling with alarm now as the cold scent of something nightmarish like open graves caught her. Adrian had stepped up beside them and set a hand to Layla’s back, pouring a soothing desert wind through her as he took a protective stance also, Rikyava snarlingly alert beside him. Even Luke had moved closer to the group with his hands ready, Rhennic extending a palm with a crackle of Storm power rushing through it.
Everyone was feeling whatever lurked in the darkness, and as Layla glanced around, she saw Adrian and Rikyava exchange a glance as if they knew what it was. Leading them at a quick pace through the bloody corridor to another node, Dusk wasted no time, opening a new passage as the one behind them closed, this one lit orange-yellow from crystals like citrine all along its length.
But through it all, Layla could still feel something nasty sliding through the darkness, dogging their steps with a curl of seeping power licking at their heels. It didn’t have shape or substance, and as she felt it sliding smoothly through every passage behind them, opened to a full hall or not, she felt her hackles rise to a furiously high alert. Everyone’s nerves were ratcheted up hard as they stopped at another node and Dusk set his hands to the wall. Forming a ring facing out, everyone had their hands up, their eyes watchful as Dusk fanned the slits, creating a blank wall of stone before them.
The citrine hall remained, dark beyond the last crystals near the node, and Layla felt that creeping power curl around them from the dark. It was cold as death, a leeching that made Layla feel shaky as a wave of vertigo passed through her. She reeled but Adrian stepped in, catching her by the shoulders. Pouring a blistering wind through her, he steadied her, pushing back that horrible sensation. Flaring a barrier of hot wind around the entire party, Adrian was fierce as he growled in the direction the leeching cold had come from. Layla thought she heard the screech of something dark and angry far away in the darkness as Adrian’s scorching power pushed it off.
“They’re coming.” Rikyava’s voice held a growling bite as her eyes went crimson with blood, a fast whirl of blood droplets manifesting around her as she watched the passage.
“What the fuck is coming?” Luke gasped, ashen and visibly shaking as Layla shivered hard in Adrian’s grip, alarm racing through her. Dusk was working his vibrations at the stone wall with a hasty feel to his magics, as if pushing himself hard to open it. Clearly, it had not been just Layla the black nightmare had suckled on in its greed.
“A Vampire Revenant. A few of them.” Adrian spoke, his gaze fierce as he glared into the darkness of the hall behind them, giving Layla a squeeze and letting her go as he raised his hands in readiness. “Rikyava – blood pool. Spread it wide to distract them. Rhennic, give me the strongest barrier you’ve got against leeching. Dusk – hurry the fuck up.”
“Easier said than done.” Dusk was tense as he grit his teeth, continuing to send rumbles of energy into the curved stone wall now at a higher pitch, now lower. His rumbles had cranked up to a fever now as if the passage was proving hard to open, and Adrian’s power scalded as he widened his blistering winds around the party. Rhennic had similarly raised his magic into a flowing plasma around the group now, bursts of lightning careening through it. Rikyava had manifested a pool of blood out along the floor, grisly in the light as it moved in rivulets back the way they’d come. Moving her fingers in a flowing dance, she pushed it out further, her crimson gaze focused back along the passage as Dusk continued his attention on the wall.
“Tell me, what’s a Vampire Revenant?” Layla spoke softly, fear devouring her as she watched the black passage.
“Vampire Revenants are ancient Vampires who have lost all connection to their humanity, Layla.” Rikyava spoke, her attention riveted to the darkness. “There’s a reason the Thin Ways are seldom used. Because if a person doesn’t have enough power to navigate the Ways—”
“You’re dead in them.” Rhennic completed Rikyava’s sentence soberly. “Regular Vampires drain a person’s blood or life-force, but Vampire Revenants don’t just leech the body, they leech the mind. Fear is their currency. The more they can make you terrified, the more they own you. If they swallow you inside your fear, there’s no coming out of it.”
“Once you’re paralyzed in your fear, the Revenant has ultimate access to you.” Rikyava continued, with a dark shiver as if even she was deeply disturbed. “They drain you – everything you are, everything you were, and everything you could ever hope to be, sometimes stringing that process along for years. It’s a very, very bad way to die.”
Layla shivered as Rikyava and Adrian shared a long look, and it suddenly hit Layla that when Adrian had been held captive by the Intercessoria, he’d endured interrogation with over a dozen Vampires. Horror flooded her as she turned to him. “Adrian, did you survive Vampire Revenants while the Intercessoria held you?”
“Three of them.” Adrian shivered, his gaze fixed on the dark hall. “It’s not something I’d like to talk about right now. We’ve got at least six on our tail, and—”
Adrian was about to say more when Dusk finally opened the wall, causing it to shiver away in a dark mirage. A gloomy stairwell lay beyond with a sheet of ice and half-melted snow at the bottom, mossy stairs curving up to a pale light above. But the scent of winter air outside the Ways was fresh, and with a relieved exhalation, their group moved towards it quickly.
But as they did, Layla felt a surge of powerful intent rush up behind them, as if the coldness of the grave had come to devour their very souls. From all sides it came, as if thousands of hands had been waiting in the dark just outside their barrier for the opportune moment. Intelligence was in that sudden strike, and Layla felt the weight of at least five minds behind it, or more.
Blasting through Rhennic and Adrian’s barriers, those dark minds ignored Rikyava’s blood-temptation, hammering straight to Layla and Luke. With a roar, Adrian seized Luke’s parka and clasped Layla in his arm, running them fast out into the icy stairwell. Stepping in front of the black nightmare, Rhennic and Rikyava hammered up twin barriers of power in a searing flash of blood and lightning-plasma, so thick Layla felt the darkness suddenly caught in that dense force. Struggling as it screeched, it shoved thousands of black tendrils through the layers to try and get to Luke and Layla.
To try and get to everyone.
Rikyava screamed and Rhennic roared, and Layla felt what the blackness was doing to them as they held their barrier – devouring their life-force away as it used its tentacles to suck at their magic, to thin it so it could punch through. But with twin growls, the cousins fought back, blasting the darkness with more and more energy, trying to make their wall hold.
In the icy stairwell, Adrian turned, flaring a scalding wind up at the rear of the party with a blistering gout of flame to sear back the darkness. Rhennic gave a roar of relief, casting a furious lance of lightning from his hand. The lightning flashed deep into the swirling blackness, followed by another and another as Rhennic blasted the Revenants back hard now. They shrieked, and at last Layla felt their group-mind retreat in pain, coiling in on themselves like a writhing mass of eels as if Rhennic’s blasts had damaged them.
As they suddenly sucked back into the dark hall beyond the node, Dusk cast his palm up in a warding gesture. Layla saw a barrier of actual crystals fractal out into the air – coating the opening of the citrine hall in a solid, thick layer. Something roared, trapped behind that barrier. Breathing hard, Layla watched a black mass like eels made of smoke writhing behind Dusk’s solid, shimmering layer. They had no form, but they had malice as they tried to find a way through with creeping black fingertips. As Layla stared, she felt the Revenants trying to claw their way through Dusk’s barrier – six pairs of nasty red eyes rising in her mind.
A hand covered Layla’s eyes, quickly – Rhennic’s big hand, blocking out those red eyes in her mind. Gasping, a cold sweat had broken out all over her body, and she shivered with terror as Adrian crushed her in his arms, pouring a blistering wind through her – stopping thosethings. As she breathed hard, sightless from Rhennic’s hand over her eyes, Layla felt Dusk perform his vibrations, closing the stone wall of the well permanently. The dark creatures were finally secured behind it, and Layla’s ears popped as the Thin Ways closed.
She could hear the rustle of trees far above now, and could smell the cool cleanness of snow. As Rhennic’s hand came down, Layla saw he’d covered Luke’s eyes also. Though Adrian had gripped Layla close, he’d clamped a hand on Luke’s wrist, and Layla watched Luke shudder as he blinked at Adrian in astonishment. Dusk leaned back against his stone barrier as if deeply fatigued, wiping sweat from his brow as he opened his eyes in the gloom. Rikyava hunkered on the icy steps at Dusk’s feet, shuddering and breathing hard with her eyes closed, her blonde brows knit as if she was in pain.
“You ok?” Adrian stepped from Layla, kneeling beside Rikyava and touching her gently on her back. Layla felt him pour a bolstering wind through her and Rikyava shuddered hard, finally breathing easier.
“I can’t even count all the times my bones have been sucked by those things.” She spoke wryly as she stood with Adrian’s help. “You’d be surprised how many of those fuckers there are up in my homeland. They just love sucking on Blood Dragons. Like a tic the size of an elephant.”
Luke stepped to Rikyava now, supporting her as she gave him a grateful smile, and Adrian pulled away. Glancing to Adrian, Luke frowned. “You saved my life. I could feel those things in my mind, digging… and your winds pushed them back.”
