Tristin is shaking his head. “No, Paul. You don’t. This is why you made him. He’s doing his job, now you need to do yours.”
In past times I might’ve ripped Tristin’s head off for talking to me this way. For disagreeing with me. Rather, for assuming he has any idea at all about what motivates me. But that’s just it. He doesn’t. Because he has no idea what I’m actually doing.
“Tristin,” I say, stepping forward to place a hand on his head. “You’ve been loyal. And I appreciate that.” Even as I speak, I’m fading, slipping backwards into the purple.
Tristin’s eyes go wide when he realizes I’m leaving. “Wait! No! We canwinthis, Paul! They are enough!” He points to my scions.
But he’s wrong. We could win this, he’s right about that. But winning was never my goal. Not even in the first days. Losing was the best I could ever hope for.
Losing everything to savehim.
So I’m shaking my head as I sink into the dirt feet first and let the Darkness take me across the compound. The cool, damp earth is like a mist as I travel through it.
Even before I return to the world above, I can hear him screaming.
Ryet.
The scions we buried with us have returned and Ryet is in the middle of them. They are attacking from all sides—dozens of them, all trying to feed.
For a moment I’m disoriented. Some leftover insanity from the change, maybe. Or I might just be so distracted by the beauty of him, I can’t think straight. My world stops and goes silent so I can just…stare at him.
Ryet.
His transformation is nearly complete and he is magnificent. His blue skin is so dark, it’s nearly black. His fangs are glistening with saliva as he snaps at the air, an unholy scream charging the air around him with crackling bits of electricity. His eyes are blood red and lit up with fire as his wings expand and contract as he desperately tries to open them to their full span of what must surely be twenty feet or more.
I am struck dumb from his beauty, unable to move until I realize that time didn’t slow down and my first true creation is fighting for his very survival.
Again, I am confused. Because the horde of scions is attacking him and it’s not supposed to be this way. I poisoned Ryet’s blood back in his cabin when I fed him all those jars. That’s why Syrsee got so sick. That’s why it’s taken so long for him to change.
“Confused, Paul?”
Even above the screeching and wailing of scions and newborn vampire alike, Josep’s voice booms through the air. It’s midday, I think. Sunny, blue skies. But with Josep’s announcement comes clouds. Dark, stormy things that look heavy enough to flood the entire Earth.
“What did you do?” My voice is low and deep and words slightly muffled because they have to get past my fangs. If I could see myself in the mirror, I’d be Ryet’s twin. My skin, my eyes, my wings.
But I don’t have to see myself in the mirror because I’m looking at Josep and he’s in his unnatural Dark form as well. We stand on opposite sides of the massive lodge pool, glaring at each other.
Josep smiles first, his lips sticking to his formidable fangs until that smile is so big, he’s grinning. “Did you really think I didn’t know who you were?”
For a split second, I panic. My muscles tense up, ready for the fight I know is coming. But in the next moment that fear is gone and I relax so completely, my wings droop down at my sides. “Did you really think I didn’t know whoyouwere, Josep?”
I’m looking at him—my blood brother, my only friend, my one true enemy—but most of my mind is preoccupied with Ryet’s screaming as he futilely flings the scions off of him, only to have the group behind latch on. Big chunks of his skin are missing. Blood is pouring out of him in rivers because these scions are hungry forhimand no matter how many times he snatches them up in his claws and throws them aside, they just get back up and come again.
They were made this way. To feed at any cost. One mission, one mind, one purpose.
To become more of us.
Ryet is losing and it is happening fast.
Which was always the plan, of course.
The official one, anyway.
We made him together, Josep and I. Our first-born. But we were never in agreement with what to do with him afterward.
Josep doesn’t react to my taunt, just licks his lips. “Did you really think I didn’t know what you were doing?”
He doesn’t say he’s referring to Ryet, and he could actually be talking about my mission, but I know he’s not. Because I was never going to sacrifice Ryet for this lot of disposable carcasses and he knew this from the day Ryet was born. “Did you really think I haven’t prepared him for your betrayal?”
