Desperation coursed through my veins. I didn’t have any semblance of a plan. All I knew was that Aiden simply couldn’t leave with Arron. I walked over to the door and shut it, then stood myself in front of it, blocking their exit.
“Look, Derek,” Arron said. “I don’t want to fight with you.” He walked over to me. “I’m sure we can settle this amicably.” Before I realized what was happening, he’d withdrawn a syringe from his cloak and dug it deep into my neck. The effect was instant; although my consciousness remained, my limbs became paralyzed and I could no longer hold my own weight. I sank to the ground. “Thanks for understanding, I knew you’d come round in the end,” the Hawk said before dragging Aiden out of the room and slamming the door shut.
“No!” I screamed, praying that someone would hear me. “Gavin! Zinnia! Somebody stop him!”
When two hours had passed with my screaming out and still nobody coming to my aid, I knew that it was already too late to save Aiden. Arron would have made off with him by now.
Is there only so much pain a man can stand before he becomes irreparably broken?
If such a threshold existed, I was sure that I had crossed it. My wife, my son, my sister, my closest friends… I’d lost them all. And now that Aiden was gone, my last true ally with any power, I didn’t know where to draw hope from in the darkness.
It had been days now since the witch had promised to call a meeting. I didn’t know why I’d expected anything other than more grief from her kind. Maintaining even a sliver of hope now seemed laughable to me.
Just as hopelessness was about to consume me, footsteps raced along the corridor outside. Two loud knocks sounded at the door.
“Help!” I shouted.
Yuri and Liana burst into the room. Their clothes were ripped and they were covered with cuts and bruises. It seemed so surreal to me that I considered perhaps the drug flowing through my veins was causing me to hallucinate.
“Derek!” they gasped in unison. Yuri wrapped his arms around me and pulled my motionless body upright.
Then Liana grabbed my chin and pulled my head to face her. Her eyes wide, she said, “Sofia is possessed by an Elder.”
Chapter 24: Derek
“She’s somewhere here at Headquarters,” Yuri panted. “Her Elder brought her here to wreck the Guardians’ gates. The only reason you didn’t recognize her as being possessed is that one of their witches in The Shade figured out a way to disguise it.”
Of course. Of course!
“And now she’s disappeared again!” I said. “Sofia along with the other vampires from The Shade—Eli, Landis, Vivienne, Cameron, Claudia… The last time I saw them face to face was two or three days ago.”
Liana’s and Yuri’s eyes lit up at the mention of their loved ones’ names. Then Liana asked, “Who did this to you, Derek?”
“Arron. I tried to stop him but he… he took Aiden to Aviary.” I let out a heavy sigh. “And I’d bet my life on it that he’s responsible for the others’ disappearances too.”
“First things first.” Yuri stood up and looked around the room. “We need to find you an antidote. You’re of no use to anyone like this… Aha.” He picked up the syringe Arron had stabbed me with from the floor and sniffed it. “We need to pay a visit to the emergency room.”
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” Gavin had also entered the room, surveying the situation. “Yuri and Liana, you shouldn’t be seen,” Gavin said. “If the vampires were removed deliberately from this place, you two are also in danger. Zinnia’s doing some investigation of her own about their disappearance, but until she reports back, you’d best keep out of sight as much as possible. You should both come to my room, and I’ll help Derek get…”
“Wait a minute,” I said. We’d been rushing ahead of ourselves so much that I hadn’t even stopped to consider the obvious. “How on earth did you escape from The Shade? And how did you travel here, or even gain entrance into Headquarters?” I looked out of the window. “It’s broad daylight!”
“The Elders were giving our bodies a rest,” Liana said. “They’d left us in one of the caves alone. A witch… she just appeared out of nowhere. She said she was going to bring us here to you. Next thing we knew, we were standing outside this office. I don’t know if she also helped out any other vampires or humans, but…”
“The Ageless,” I muttered. “Where did she go?”
“I have no idea,” said Yuri. “I asked if she would stay to help us, but she ignored my question and vanished.”
“We have no time to waste, Derek. If the Elder hasn’t been giving her enough breaks, I dread to think what state Sofia could be in now. The Ageless clearly isn’t going to offer any more assistance,” Liana urged. “I don’t know what has happened to the others, but the witch did tell us where to find Sofia. She said that Arron has locked her in a dungeon located directly beneath the Atrium. The trapdoor leading to her cell is hidden within the armory.”
Arron… I knew it. If Sofia was still possessed, I had no idea what I’d do even if I managed to reach her. All I knew was that I had to.
“Gavin,” Yuri said, handing him the syringe, “run up to the emergency rooms and ask the nurse to give you an antidote to this paralyzer solution. If the nurse asks why you need it, just lie.”
Once Gavin had left the room, I said to my two friends, “Gavin’s right. You mustn’t be seen by anyone. As soon as Gavin returns, you must go with him to his apartment and lock yourselves inside. Don’t come out under any circumstances.”
“But Derek!” Liana exclaimed. “You need our…”
“No, Liana. Neither of you will be useful for anything if you get caught and taken God knows where.” I shuddered, thinking of Vivienne and the others.
Gavin returned five minutes later with a new syringe full of transparent liquid. He lost no time in stabbing the needle into the vein in my left wrist. Within several minutes, I had regained full control over my limbs. I stood up and looked around the room. “Now that Aiden is gone, we must be careful. A hundred times more careful,” I warned. “As long as we stay in this place, we’re completely at the mercy of Arron.”
I nodded at Liana and Yuri and they begrudgingly headed toward the door. “Gavin,” I said, “take them to your rooms and keep them safe while I’m gone.”
We all exited the room, heading off in different directions. The Atrium was only five minutes away from Aiden’s office and it wasn’t long before I’d found the armory and located a dusty wooden trapdoor behind a tall cupboard. As I heaved it open, the smell of damp and rot invaded my nostrils. The place was lit with dim light bulbs fixed at intervals along the walls of the winding staircase. I moved down the steps, pulling the door shut above me, making as little noise as possible.
The dungeon came into view and, in the corner, a familiar figure lay curled up on the ground.
“Sofia?” I whispered, approaching her cautiously. She didn’t stir. She was so still I feared for a moment that she was no longer breathing. Chains had been attached to her hands and feet. The skin around them was red and raw. She must have been tugging against them for hours. I brushed her long matted hair away from her face. Dried blood covered her mouth and her eyes were closed. I reached to touch her skin and was appalled by how coarse and dry it now felt. A yellowish color was developing in patches.
“Sofia.” I spoke louder and with more urgency.
I dared to shake her shoulders. She remained still. Just as I was about to leave her side to look around the room for keys to the chains, her eyes shot open, only these were not Sofia’s eyes. A translucent film had developed over them. Her mouth hung loosely as though she had lost control over her facial muscles.
Her breaths started coming in rasps. “Derek!” she wheezed. “Please, darling. I need b-blood. I’m dying of thirst.”
Is this Sofia addressing me? Or is it the Elder?
Whatever the case, Sofia’s body was clearly fading away and if sustaining her also meant sustaining the evil within
her, so be it.
I lowered my wrist and coaxed her to take a bite. Instead, with an unexpected motion she placed her arms around my neck and dragged my head down toward her. She bit into the flesh beneath my ear and began sucking. After several seconds I felt a stinging, weak at first but growing stronger and more painful. The Elder wants to turn me.
I jerked away from her, wincing as her fangs tore through my skin. She tried to grab hold of me again, but I stepped away.
“What are you doing, Derek? Can’t you see that I need you, my love? I’m dying! All the times I fed you my own blood, and this is how you repay me?”
Although I knew Sofia would never speak such words, there was an undercurrent of truth to them that didn’t fail to make me feel a pang of guilt.
Sofia continued to cry out to me. “If you won’t feed me, then please, melt away these chains. Free me, Derek! What are you waiting for?”
Although I still had no idea how to get Sofia out of this nightmare, doing the opposite of what the Elder was insisting upon was a good place to start.
“Stop playing games by hiding behind my wife. I know what you are.” My voice boomed through the dungeon. “You saw what I did to one of your fellow Elders back at The Shade, didn’t you? Leave my wife now, lest the same fate befall you.”
Sofia’s eyes rolled and she began to laugh. “As if you would risk your precious lover’s life! Remember that your Corrine is not here to save the day this time. She’s powerless now, as weak as a bee out of sting. We made sure of that after what she did. If you kill me, you kill Sofia.”
“I don’t need any witch.” I spoke with confidence I didn’t possess. “I inherited more powers than you can possibly imagine from Corrine’s ancestor, Cora. I could have done it without her. And I will do it without her in a few moments if you don’t comply. My patience is running thin.”
So desperate was the situation, bluffing was the only tactic I could think of. I knew better than anyone that I couldn’t unleash fire on Sofia’s body without running the risk of killing her. I widened my stance as if gearing myself up for a fight and allowed a small flare to escape from my palms.
“I’m warning you. I’ll count to three. One… Two…”
Before I could finish counting, a door unlatching echoed around the room. I whirled around to look up at the trapdoor, but from a different direction a deep voice I knew too well spoke.
“Oh, interesting. Very interesting.”
Arron emerged from a steel door in a far corner of the dungeon. My first instinct was to stand protectively in front of Sofia.
“So,” Arron said. “I’d actually come to put the girl out of her misery now, rather than make her suffer until the bitter end. But perhaps you’d like to do the honors yourself?”
He drew out a wooden stake from under his cloak and offered it to me. I knew too much about the Hawk to appeal to his better nature, for he had none. Just like all the other supernaturals we now found ourselves embroiled with.
Without hesitation, I shot fire at him. Black wings sprouted from his back and flew him out of the way, but he only narrowly dodged being burned.
“Don’t touch her,” I snarled.
“Derek, you must understand that your wife is long gone. She’s nothing but an empty shell. Can’t you see the symptoms of expiration? Even if you managed to expel the Elder, it’s far too late. She’ll never recover. Give her up.”
He’s lying. Sofia is still there. If I believed the Hawk’s words I would start acting rashly and lose control over the powers I desperately needed to harness.
“Protect me, Derek!” Sofia’s voice squealed from behind me.
“You lie!” I shouted at Arron, lunging forward. He was now hovering above me, his head nearly touching the ceiling, and I managed to jump and grab hold of one of his feet, pulling him to the ground. I dealt a blow to his face that sent him skidding across the room.
He got to his feet and red fury sparked in his darkened eyes. I had never seen Arron in his full Hawk form before. Now he transformed in front of me. His mouth and nose became a black beak with a razor-sharp edge, and talons grew out from where his human feet had been.
“You’ve made a terrible mistake, Derek”—he flew at me and pinned me against the wall, his hands tightening around my throat and his feet forcing my palms away from him—“to cross a Guardian the way you have.”
He tilted his head back, preparing to dig the point of his beak right into my neck. Then he froze.
The steel door through which Arron had entered the room had just slammed shut.
Arron released me and we both looked frantically around the room. Open chains lay on the ground where Sofia had been. Next to them rested a cluster of keys. It must have fallen from Arron’s pocket when I’d hurled him against the floor.
“No!” Arron hissed.
He spread his wings and flew toward the door, pulling it open. I raced after him. Just as I had reached the door, he tried to slam it in my face, but I forced it open with all my strength. We’d entered a tunnel which was far too small to hold his outstretched wings, so he rushed ahead on foot like me. I was mere inches behind him. Sofia staggered up ahead, but she disappeared from sight.
She had reached the end of the passageway. Arron and I emerged a few moments after her. We’d entered a circular chamber with high ceilings and a shiny black floor. I charged forward, desperate to reach Sofia before Arron could.
She was now kneeling in the corner of the room leaning over what appeared to be a dark hole in the floor. She inhaled deeply. Panic overtook me. I believed she was taking in her last breath.
Everything that happened next was a blur.
Arron elbowed me in the stomach and reached her before me. He caught hold of her waist and dragged her back, away from the hole. He pinned her down against the marble floor, both legs either side of her, and began to strike her with his fists. One more blow and I was sure that would have been the end of my already dying Sofia.
I grabbed the Hawk from behind and hauled him off of her. We both crashed to the floor.
“Burn off his wings!” Sofia panted. “Kill him, Derek! Save me!”
I couldn’t afford to let Arron take flight again. I crawled onto his back, forcing his face against the floor. Grabbing hold of both wings, I let the heat rage up in my palms again. On feeling the rising heat, Arron began writhing beneath me more violently than ever.
“Wait!” he gasped out. I glanced up to see that Sofia had crawled her way back over to the hole in the floor. Her chest heaved in another strange inhalation.
“That is the last open gate to Aviary. Know that if the Elder destroys it, you will never be reunited with your son.”
What?
That split second of distraction became my downfall. Arron took advantage of my shock to squirm away from me. This time, the Hawk lost no time in grabbing Sofia and lifting her up into the air. He moved so quickly that I couldn’t latch onto him before he flew out of my reach.
“No!” I bellowed.
Arron grinned down at me from the lofty ceiling and laughed. “Watch as I rip her apart. You might even be able to catch some of her falling limbs. If you’d only cooperated, I would have made it quick. A stab through the heart was all I had intended, but you just had to go and make it so much worse for her…”
Sofia flailed in his grasp, her claws extended and trying to lash out at him. But she had no chance. He was a bird of prey and Sofia a snake in his talons.
I considered directing more fire toward him, but he deliberately held Sofia in such a position that the flames would completely engulf her before they even reached him.
“Derek! Help me!” Sofia screamed again. Arron had started running his sharp beak along the length of her shoulder blades, making his first mark on her. Etching out his first cut. Terror filled me as a few drops of her blood splashed onto the floor just a couple of feet away from where I stood.
Is this where our journey ends, Sofia?
After all that we
survived together, all that we fought for?
Like this?
“Return the girl to the ground.”
A silky voice boomed through the room and echoed off the walls. Even Arron looked bewildered.
The witch with long silvery hair stood at the entrance of the chamber. The witch I had already sworn would never be welcome in my life.
Arron’s expression was of shock, but it turned to fury. “You dare give me orders, witch?”
“You heard me, Hawk. Bring her to me.”
“Has a fit of madness overcome you? Since when did a Hawk obey a witch’s command?”
The witch kept her steely glare on Arron.
“Since today. Return her to the ground. Or I will wipe out the final gate to Aviary myself.”
A deathly silence fell over the chamber. Both Arron and Sofia’s faces exuded the same astonishment. It was as though neither Arron or the Elder had ever seen a witch take a stand in this way.
The witches are giving up their neutral ground. There will be no going back for them now. This means outright war between all the realms.
The Ageless moved closer to the hole as if to signal that this was no bluff. Arron’s face contorted with rage, but he did as the witch asked. He soared back down and dropped Sofia to the floor.
The moment Sofia landed with a thud, she scrambled up on all fours and started crawling feverishly toward the gate. This time it was me who grabbed her before she could reach her destination. She howled, trying to maim me with her claws and dig her teeth into my skin, but I held on tight. I gazed up at the witch with desperate eyes.
The witch nodded, as if she’d read my mind. She held out her palms. A strong gust of wind rushed past my body and settled over Sofia beneath me.
“No! No, Derek! Don’t let her do this to me! Take me away from this place!’’ Sofia’s eyes were lit with anguish and I knew then that the Elder realized what was coming. She turned her face toward the Ageless. Her eyeballs turned black as night and her voice transformed into a hiss. “Exorcise this vessel, witch, and Cruor will not spare you. We will never stop until we have infected your entire realm and inhabited each and every one of your bodies like carnivorous worms—”