But there was nothing there.
There was no one there.
He spun around in wild circles, shouting, snarling, raving like a madman: “I’ll kill them! I’ll kill them all! And the rivers will run crimson with their blood!” He thought he heard a harsh, keening moan in the background, and he whirled to confront the source of the sound before he realized it had come from his own hoarse throat. “No. No! I will not lose my father. I cannot. I will kill them. I will kill them all! And the rivers will run crimson with their blood!”
Somehow, the lycans must have heard him.
They must have either perceived his threat, or registered the insult, because they came back through the portal: All six of them returned.
Without Keitaro.
Kagen knew that he needed to call out to his brothers, right then and there, but there wasn’t any time. The lycans gave him no quarter. They stealthily surrounded him in their own garish circle, and in that singular, harrowing moment, he knew he could not concentrate on two things at once: detecting the barest twitch of an enemy’s hand—which one would lunge at him first?—and calling out telepathically for help.
So he concentrated on the six hulking males in front of him, instead, praying he would make it out of this alive. And then he summoned the depths of his rage: I will kill them! I will kill them all! And the rivers will run crimson with their blood!
The instant the first lycan started to shift, Kagen struck with amazing speed and precision. He caught him by the throat, even as his jaw was beginning to distend, and ripped out his esophagus with his teeth. The swift, immediate kill was as surprising as it was satisfying, but there wasn’t enough blood. Not nearly enough blood! As he spat the enemy’s spine on the ground, he rocked backward, stooped down into a crouch, and angled his body to face the five remaining Alphas.
In the blink of an eye, there were no longer five intimidating persons in front of him, but five enormous beasts with wicked teeth and jagged claws; and each emitted a rancid, gut-wrenching smell, an odor that could only be described as rage-filled Lycanthrope.
He started to call out to Nathaniel, but the lycan called Teague lunged at him so quickly, so savagely, that he barely had time to raise his left arm and block the attack. As the massive, furry jaw clamped down on his wrist, snapping the radius in two, the one who wore a gold medallion maneuvered behind him, sank down on his paws, and tore a quart-sized bite out of Kagen’s flexed hamstring. Kagen bit back a cry of pain and wrenched his leg free from the monstrous jaw, watching in morbid fascination as another of the lycans shifted back into human form, retrieved a syringe from the ground, and plunged it into Kagen’s neck.
He had no idea what was in the syringe.
It burned like molten lava, and the effects were instantaneous: He immediately began to feel weak and disoriented. As he staggered backward in reaction to the substance, he tried to call out to his brother again—this time, to Marquis—but the communication would not go through.
It was as if the focused thought were a stone slung against a brick wall: It hit an implacable barrier, bounced off with a ping, and then shattered on its way to the ground. There would be no communication with his brothers.
Kagen was on his own.
Against an enemy every bit his equal, down to the last, solitary male.
Realizing that death may be imminent—if not inevitable—he fought like a vampire possessed. He severed limbs, gouged out an eye, and even managed to rip out a spleen before the red haze finally cleared enough for him to measure the carnage. Lying before him were three dead lycans, sprawled out unnaturally on the valley floor, their bodies a mangled heap of blood and gore and excrement: the one he had killed earlier, right off the bat; the male who had injected him with the syringe; and another wiry beast with a gruesome, ejected eyeball lying near his mouth, still attached to the optic nerve. He spat on the corpse closest to him and turned to face the remaining three. “Where is my father!” he demanded, his voice wild with volcanic fury. “Where have you taken him? And which one of you killed my mother!”
In a brazen act of insolence, one of the remaining males took a defiant lope toward him and snarled like a rabid beast. His grotesque mouth was drawn back in a smile; his garish yellow teeth were gleaming in the moonlight, and blood-tinged saliva swung from his jowls, emitting an odor so foul Kagen could taste it on his tongue. The beast’s very existence was repugnant. And then, in an act of careless arrogance, the wolf shifted back into the body of a man, flipped Kagen off with his third finger, and mocked him with a scowl. “We’ve taken him to hell, and you will never see him again!”
Kagen took immediate advantage of the idiot’s insolent pride.
He crouched even lower, speared his hand through the male’s groin, and ripped out his intestines. Then he sucked the blood out of the carnage before tossing it to the valley floor. “I’ll kill you.” He seethed in defiance. “I’ll kill you all. And the rivers will run crimson with your blood…”
The wolf named Teague rose to his full height—he must have stood at least ten feet tall on his hind legs—and he glared at Kagen with utter madness radiating in his feral, amber eyes. He opened his mouth, baring a vicious set of canines, and bellowed his rage at the moon.
Kagen hissed in reply, preparing to take him on; but this time, they attacked as a unit.
Pain shot through Kagen’s sternum as Teague struck like a viper, sinking his massive teeth into Kagen’s shoulders; clamping down as if his life depended upon it; and snapping the large clavicle like a twig. A second set of canines sank into Kagen’s neck, tearing through the now-exposed tendons from behind. A forepaw raked across his bicep; another slashed him through the cheek; and a third swipe temporarily blinded his eyes.
As teeth pierced deep into muscle, as muscle gave way to broken bones, as blood splattered and organs rent, Kagen doubled over on the valley floor and then scrambled to his knees.
His enemy was far too strong.
Their numbers had been far too great.
Yet…and still…it didn’t matter: his life or his death, his certain passing into the world beyond.
All that mattered was his utter failure to do what he had set out to do—to save Keitaro.
To save his father.
And now, the rivers would never run crimson with blood.
As his mind gave way to defeat, and he tried to brace himself against the coming blow—his coming death, a small, distant voice whispered tenaciously inside his head, echoing in his soul: Vampire, you are a healer, a magician, a practitioner of unparalleled ability. Fight them with what you have left.
Kagen blinked several times, trying to make sense of the words. Who had spoken them? And what did they mean?
He turned his attention inward and assessed the situation: He was kneeling on the ground before his mortal enemy. His arms were broken, his throat was torn open, and his organs were serrated and leaking blood. His left foot was barely attached to his leg, and his shoulder was virtually crushed. Within moments, the lycans would rip his heart from his body, and his mortality would come to an end. What was the point of trying to address his wounds now? Of trying to heal so many injuries? As if he had time…
Where would he even start to use his venom?
To use…
His venom?
For reasons beyond his comprehension, Kagen glanced up toward the sky, and that’s when he saw them: the scavengers, the vultures, the vile birds circling all around them, waiting to devour the carrion, waiting to feast on the dead. And although he had never given an imperious command to an animal, tried to use the vampiric power of compulsion on a species other than human, he could sense their collective consciousness, the spark that gave them life.
And he understood it in a way he had never understood it before:
All life was one.
And it was connected at a subatomic level.
The vale grew very dark and still—silent, almost dreamlike—as he all at once realized what he had to do: Ka
gen Silivasi was a healer, a magician, a practitioner of unparalleled ability, and he had to welcome death in order to reclaim life.
A single tear escaped his eye as he focused all of his power in that one, critical moment, as he sought to merge his consciousness with the foreign mind of the birds: You will do as I command!
He bent low to the ground and pressed his face in the dirt, almost as if he were kneeling in supplication before the enemy, pleading for what remained of his life; and then, he coaxed as much venom as he could out of his fangs and watched as it pooled beneath him. He left a mound of venom collected at his knees, and then he seared the rest of his compulsion into the minds of the scavengers: You will wait until the lycans are gone; you will dip your talons into this venom; and then you will retrieve my heart and place it back in my chest.
Kagen shuddered as an even more horrified thought entered his mind: What if the lycans removed his heart and severed his head from his body?
He quickly dismissed the thought.
If that happened, then nothing he was about to do would matter.
He would never save his father.
He would never kill them all.
And the rivers would never run crimson with their blood.
Both Teague and the other lycan had already shifted back into human form, gloating arrogantly while Kagen knelt before them, jeering as he appeared to plead for his life.
Teague kicked him ruthlessly in the side, breaking a pair of ribs. “Sit up, vampire! Face your death—and your superior enemy—like a man.”
Kagen swallowed a nasty retort. He swallowed his pride, and he swallowed his fear.
He could do this.
He would do this.
And the rivers would run crimson with their blood.
He rose unsteadily to his knees, gasping from the pain in his sides, his torn throat, his crushed shoulder, and his laboring lungs; and he let his head fall forward in a gesture of defeat.
“Link your hands behind your back,” Teague snarled, clearly taking enormous pleasure in forcing the vampire to cooperate with his own execution.
Ah, Kagen thought, with resignation, then they do intend to seize my heart.
He didn’t dare resist, lest they become enraged once again and decapitate him.
He linked his hands behind his back—at least he faked it, considering the impossible condition of his broken bones and fingers—and he exposed his chest to his enemy, using his last ounce of strength to raise his jaw and meet the lycan’s stare head-on. To you, Lord Auriga, I offer my soul, and I pray you will return this sacrifice: Let me live to save my father. Let me return to kill them all. May the rivers run crimson with their blood!
The one called Teague descended upon him like a thousand hounds from hell.
He lunged at his proffered torso, shifted in midair, and tore through his breastbone with his jaw, wrenching the still-beating heart from Kagen’s chest with a force so brutal it felt like his spine had exploded.
Kagen jolted in sudden, inexpressible agony.
His mouth flew open in a wordless shout, and the breath left his body in a whoosh.
As his eyes bulged in his sockets, his once-powerful physique collapsed in on him, and his limp, eviscerated body slumped to the ground.
Silence.
Darkness.
Stillness engulfed him.
He heard a crisp pop, like the sound of grease sizzling in a pan, and just like that, his soul shot upward, ascending into the sky like a comet spiraling in reverse.
No! Kagen’s soul shouted defiantly, reaching desperately for the ground. The rivers must run crimson with their blood! He repeated the familiar refrain again and again, all the while, seeking his body, holding onto his once-immortal existence by a thread.
Kagen Silivasi haunted his corpse like a ghost.
He clung to his sentience while his spirit hovered about the scene of his death.
He waited like a specter while the lycans gathered their dead and, at last, slipped back through the portal.
He watched while the scavengers descended from the trees, as they dipped their talons in the pool of venom; grasped his heart in their faithful claws; and placed the damaged organ back into his battered chest.
He marveled as his heart began to knit itself back together…
And then he awoke to a pain unlike anything he had ever known in his 521 years—he awoke without any recollection of what had just happened.
He awoke completely absent of memory.
Kagen Silivasi had no idea, whatsoever, what had just befallen him.
He shouted in agony. He tried to draw his knees to his chest, but his ribcage assailed him. He tried to roll onto his side, but his back began to spasm. He tried to bring his hands to his face, to bite into his own flesh in order to counter the pain, but his limp hands and arms betrayed him: His limbs were broken, his chest was saturated in blood, and his throat felt like someone had sliced it open with a razor.
As he writhed on the ground in torment, alternating between retching and extracting his venom, he struggled to start healing his wounds, and he tried—
By all that was holy, he tried!
To remember…
Something.
What?
It had seemed so vital!
“Kagen!” Nathaniel Silivasi stared at his twin in abject horror. He shook him by the shoulders once again and tried to get through to him with his mind. Brother…please…snap out of it!
Kagen had been gone for at least a half an hour, lost in some sort of trance, trapped in some sort of living hell—ranting and raving like a madman, pulling his hair out by the roots, rocking back and forth like a stricken child, and pounding his fists into the dirt. Nachari had tried every spell he could think of in an effort to pull him out of the nightmare—the vision? The meltdown. And Nathaniel had reverted to pleading to the gods on his twin’s behalf.
Still, nothing had reached the tortured vampire.
It had been terrifying, ghastly…utterly appalling to watch.
When, finally, the Master Healer had started to vomit and writhe along the ground, as if his body was in unbearable pain, Marquis had rolled him on his side and held him down by his arms and legs. “Kagen, brother, stop this at once!” As if an implacable order would get through, where compassion, magic, and pleading had not.
“Wake up, Kagen! Please come back!” Nathaniel tried again.
Kagen jolted upright, as if suddenly hearing his brothers’ words. He looked up into the compassionate eyes that were boring into his and blinked with the first, true sign of awareness. “Nathaniel?”
Nathaniel breathed an audible sigh of relief. “Yes, brother.”
“Where am I?”
“You’re in Mhier, Kagen. We all are,” Nathaniel said softly.
“What the hell just happened?” Marquis demanded.
Kagen sat up straighter then. He scrubbed his face with his hands and tried to calm his breathing. He looked around the forest, as if seeing it for the first time, and shuddered. “I don’t know. I don’t know. I just—” His words broke off. “There was something…something I needed to do. To remember. Something so very important.”
“Something you needed to do?” Marquis grumbled, repeating the muddled words. “I believe you just did plenty. You have been rolling around on the ground for the last half hour, healer. I thought I was going to have to knock you out.”
Kagen furrowed his brow. He looked up at Marquis and shook his head in apology. “I’m sorry, warrior. I don’t know what happened.” And then all at once, his face went slack, and his stark brown eyes deepened with shadows. “Oh gods, oh gods…oh gods!”
“What is it?” Nachari asked, kneeling beside Nathaniel to get closer to Kagen.
Kagen blanched, his skin turning a ghastly shade of white. “I knew,” he whispered gravely, his voice lingering like a soft bow drawn across a bass cello—deep, sorrowful, and filled with regret. “All this time, I knew our father had been taken by the lycans.
I knew that he needed our help. I knew there was a portal, yet I did nothing. I said…nothing.” His voice vibrated with anguish, and his eyes clouded with tears.
“What are you talking about?” Nathaniel asked, his own voice rough with insistence. “What do you mean, you knew our father had been taken by the lycans? You knew nothing! None of us did.” He met Marquis’s anxious gaze and shrugged his shoulders in confusion.
Nachari drew back, waiting to hear more.
“I remember everything now—oh, gods—I was supposed to save him.” Kagen spoke to no one in particular. “Instead, I let them take him. I said nothing. I did nothing. For centuries!”
“Brother, we don’t understand what you’re talking about,” Nachari said. His voice radiated with kindness, yet it also rose with fear.
“What do you remember?” Marquis bit out.
“All of it,” Kagen said sadly. “Everything. The night Father disappeared from Dark Moon Vale.” He fisted his hands and pressed them against the ground to steady his body from shaking. “I was there. I saw it happen.”
“You saw what happen?” Nathaniel asked.
Nachari held his hand up as if to silence his brothers’ questions, and then he leaned closer to Kagen and gently touched his cheek. “Brother, you say this is a memory, yes?”
Kagen slowly shook his head. “A nightmare.”
“Can you share it with us?” Nachari asked softly.
Kagen froze—as if trying to decide—and then he slowly nodded his head. “I think that might be best.”
Marquis took a step closer to the circle then. “Send it out in a unified stream, to all of us at once, healer. And we will decide for ourselves if your words make any sense.”
“Marquis,” Nachari chastised beneath his breath.
Nathaniel rolled his eyes before turning to regard Kagen with concern. “Are you strong enough to do that?” he asked.
Kagen nodded. “Of course, the strength I lacked was then…not now.”
Nathaniel shook his head, feeling helpless. He placed a firm, reassuring hand on Kagen’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “Share your experience with us now, and we will discuss the latter in a moment.”