Chapter 37
Lusor
High Councillor Harlin’s family were spirit callers. They could speak with ghosts and bend them to their will. With how many ghosts currently occupying Necropolis, they could track the vampires' and cultists' movements through the city. It was an unconventional way to use their skills, but to everyone else’s surprise, it worked nearly as well as other sorcerer methods for tracking which necromancers couldn’t perform.
Ghosts filled the warehouse as dozens of spirit callers summoned them to gather information. Every few seconds, someone would run forward and point to a building on Salic’s massive map, giving a quick update of how many vampires and cultists were currently there and what had happened in the past day.
I stood at the side of the table, listening and taking in the information. The map showed that the fall of Necropolis was an ongoing event. A work in progress, not a foregone conclusion.
The high council had failed to mention that to us or their people, choosing to keep them in the dark rather than argue against trying to mount a rescue for the survivors. Until we arrived, it would have been suicide. Now, they were looking at a fair fight. I hated fair fights, which was why I was trying to come up with a better plan.
The survivors in the city were typically the most skilled and wealthy. Anyone who couldn’t protect themselves was already dead. The vampires seemed to value the survivor's knowledge and expertise more than they valued numbers. They had their army and could leave anytime, but they weren’t. They were chasing down the survivors with the help of the two ancient vampires inside the city’s walls.
“These attacks make no sense,” Sir Trent muttered. “They attacked this compound over here, crossed half the city to attack this one over here, only to return to attack the neighbouring compound here.”
“They’re being careful,” I replied. “There aren’t many weapons that can kill an ancient vampire, but in a city of necromancers, there might be one or two.”
“An ambush won’t work if we can’t prepare a location.”
“You underestimate my kind’s perception if you think any ambush will work.”
“We could attempt a charge. With everyone, we would make it through the city.”
“Only if the sun’s up, and we don’t have that much time.”
Sir Trent looked at me and frowned. “You think the cultists will be ready before dawn?”
I pointed to farmland outside the city wall where the ritual circle was being prepared by the cultist. The children were currently unconscious in the middle of the ritual circle, incapable of fleeing.
“They’ve got a quarter of a million children they can sacrifice and thirteen chosen. With that many sacrifices, the ritual doesn’t need to be precise.”
“You’re sure about that?”
“I considered trying to perform the ritual with Unseen before I realised there was no way around having a demon king patron.”
Sir Trent shook his head at my admission before pausing to listen to an update on Lusor’s position that we’d been waiting for. “How do we deal with five ancient vampires?”
I smiled. “That’s easy. Divide and conquer.”
Thirty minutes later, my familiars and I reached the surface and exited the dungeon into an ornamental graveyard.
There were no bodies in the graves, just gravestones for those who had fallen in the dungeon. It was a memorial, a reminder of the dangers below. The deceased’s age, class, level, and skills were included to encourage anyone who entered the dungeon to take the risks seriously.
The thousands of weathered gravestones lined the worn path to the streets of Necropolis. Storefronts and restaurants sat at the edge of the memorial, providing the students from their academy with easy entertainment. The shops remained untouched because few vampires were interested in loot, but every home showed signs of invasion. Broken windows, shattered doors, and bodies were all common.
There was a heaviness in the air as I slowed my run and released my aura, inviting Lusor and the other ancient vampires in the city to speak with me. Harlin and his family were still tracking the ancient vampires outside the city, so I'd get a warning if they came our way. Davina, Angelica, and I couldn’t win 3v5, but we could win 3v3 if Lusor were there.
Lusor had been the strongest ancient vampire to attack Darksmith, but his presence had nothing to do with his strength and everything to do with his weak will. Angelica might not be able to control the others, but she would be able to control him for a time. After he was under her control, we only had to kill one of them to put the odds firmly in our favour.
I wasn’t sure if we could pull it off.
I couldn’t tell Davina or Angelica the plan without risking them giving it away with their scent, so they were going in blind. It was a calculated risk, but my calculations were repeatedly wrong recently.
I stopped walking fifty feet from the entrance and inhaled, sifting through the scents carried on the night air.
The city was soaked in blood and murder, loss and regret, anger and a thirst for retaliation. The dead walked the streets in many forms, seething for vengeance over the injustices they had faced. The wall between the living and the dead was crumbling. So much death magic had been released that the environment was warping, allowing Deadlands to soak into the city. If it got much worse, Death would walk among us, and the sun wouldn’t rise. Nobody wanted that.
“What the hell is that thing?” Angelica asked, pointing at a stingray-shaped spiritual entity clinging to a storefront in the distance.
Angelica’s surprise was justified, and so was her fear and anxiety. Wraith wisps normally only existed in the Deadlands. It didn’t belong here.
“Be quiet,” Davina whispered. “We’re being watched.”
“Of course, we’re being watched,” Angelica replied without lowering her voice. “Vampires overran the city. And stop whispering. I can’t hear you.”
“It’s called a wraith wisp,” I said. “Now, both of you pay attention to your surroundings.”
Angelica turned and glared at me. “It would be easier to pay attention if someone wasn’t whispering. It’s distracting. I can barely hear her with my helmet on.”
Angelica had been in a mood since I woke her from her nap, and I didn’t have time to argue with her. “Davina don’t bother whispering. The elder vampires hiding in that building can hear everything we say.”
“Is it dangerous?” Angelica asked, still pointing at the wraith wisp.
“Yes.”
“Should I kill it?”
“Wraith wisps feed on vampires.”
“So that’s a no.”
“It’s a no.”
“Why are we standing in a graveyard?”
“We’re waiting for our guests to arrive.”
Angelica turned to Davina and lifted her visor. “Do you have any more of those pastries?”
“You can have one,” Davina replied, scanning the area for threats.
Angelica leaned closer, pouting and giving her fake puppy dog eyes. “I might die here. Do you want only giving me one to be our last moment together?”
“You can have two.”
“Half.”
“You’re getting two.” Davina pulled a small wooden box from her storage pouch and handed it to Angelica.
Angelica looked inside the box. “There are only two in here. Are these your only ones?”
“Mother didn’t have anymore.”
Angelica pulled a jam-filled pastry from the box before offering the box back to Davina. “You should have just said you only have two.”
“You wouldn’t have believed me.”
“Take it. I don’t want my last action to be bullying a saint.”
“Half saint,” Davina replied, taking the box with a small smile at Angelica’s rare display of kindness. She turned and held out the box to me. “Do you want it?”
I ignored her, listening to the sound of rapidly approaching footsteps. There were hundreds of them, but three were moving faster than the rest.
Davina started eating the pastry when she didn’t get a reply. She didn’t play around like Angelica, finishing her snack in only a few seconds before wiping her hands clean on a cloth and offering it to Angelica.
Angelica sniffed and screwed up her face. “Is that scented with garlic?”
“Garlic oil and holy water,” Davina replied. “Mother gave it to me to make us smell less appealing to them.”
“I’m not touching that. It smells revolting.”
“You add garlic to everything you eat.”
“That’s because someone keeps looking at me like I’m food.”
I chuckled.
“Stop looking at me like I’m food! It’s not funny.”
“It is when garlic is almost as appealing to ancient vampires as it is to humans.”
They both stared at me, shocked. “What!”
“It’s toxic to vampires and a deterrent for elder vampires, but we find the smell quite pleasant.”
“I’ve been adding raw garlic to my salads! Do you know how disgusting that is?”
“We have bigger problems,” I said, looking up.
The three sets of footsteps were not the ancient vampires I was waiting for, but three elite elders sent as a distraction. The three we were waiting for had shapeshifted into clouds of bats, using the new forms as cover to approach unnoticed.
It almost worked too.
The three clouds of tightly grouped bats slowed their flight as they noticed I’d spotted them. They flew in at a more sedate pace, flying above the graveyard before diving toward the ground and morphing together to reform their human bodies. The transformations finished as their feet touched the graveyard path, stepping toward us together in human forms.
I had no idea how they could shapeshift into multiple entities or maintain their clothes, but I was interested in finding out. It seemed like a useful skill to have. Luke would also find the cliché funny.
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Lusor walked out front with supernatural grace. He towered above us with his naked, inhuman size, holding his aura tight.
The pair behind him had scents so mingled that they could only be husband and wife. They walked arm in arm with amused expressions. She wore an elegant green dress, while he wore a tightly fitted black suit. Their attachment to one another told me they were the vampires Yasmir and Sing. The pair hadn’t been seen since the razed the city of Hasprin to the ground.
I bowed to acknowledge their presence and to thank them for gracing me with their presence. Demons had their own etiquette. Ignoring protocol would tip them off to the fact that I was not like them.
“I am the Vampire Vincent. And I am here to discuss terms.”
Lusor gave me an amused grin. “I am the Vampire Lusor, and I can smell my blood on your lips. I’m going to enjoy teaching you what happens to those who steal from me.”
There was something thrilling about engaging and competing with my own kind. My instincts pushed me to order Angelica to compel him and make him kneel. I kept those instincts in check. I needed to determine whether Yasmir or Sing was weaker before we fought.
I returned his amused smile with my own. “Consider your blood the price of being rude. You knew Darksmith was mine, and yet you invaded anyway.”
“Yes, your little necromancer project.” Lusor looked around. “I’m afraid we might have ruined your plans.”
I chuckled. “That makes two of us. How is capturing the Darklord’s daughter going for you, and how many students did you manage to turn in the end? Was it a tenth of those you came for or even less? It was petty of me to take your prize, but I was in a petty mood before I left.”
His smile turned ugly. “The students were of little consequence.”
“Was the Darklord’s daughter of little consequence?”
He showed his fang as he balled his fists. “No.”
Yasmir released his wife’s arm as he stepped forward and bowed. “Gentlemen, we all have reasons enough to want to drain each other dry, but this is neither the time nor place as none of us have sufficient advantage. I am the Vampire Yasmir. I am willing to discuss terms with you.”
I returned his bow. “Do you speak on behalf of those in Necropolis?”
Sing stepped forward, caught the edge of her dress, and curtsied. “I am the Vampire Sing. I can confirm that Yasmir speaks for us, much to Lusor’s irritation.”
I returned the curtsy with a bow before turning to Yasmir. “What terms do you offer?”
Yasmir smiled. “Why should we offer any? You can’t stop us.”
“Perhaps, but why waste your time when a simple agreement would tell you everything you wish to know?”
Sing cackled as she caught Yasmir’s arm and leaned in. “He’s so fresh and innocent. I remember when we trusted our instincts so blindly. And our shock when they failed us.”
She stepped forward, releasing her husband.
“Show me that face, Vincent. Show me your disbelief as you realise your instincts and thoughts have led you to your demise. As you recognise what we all realise if we live long enough, that the instincts that make us so dangerous, the thoughts that are so sharp, do not allow us to consider other options. That we walk only one path until that path leads us to doom.”
My mind automatically tried to prove her claim wrong and devise a second plan for what I could do next, not a contingency for if something happened, but a true second plan. Only one plan came to mind. The original.
Since becoming an ancient vampire, my mind had never encountered a problem it couldn’t solve, so it automatically tried again. And again. And again. I kept trying to think of a second plan, but my mind kept returning to the first, which caused me to try to think of a second plan, which returned me to the first, which caused me to try to think of a second plan. On and on this went, spiralling out of my control.
My mind became caught in a loop.
I don’t know how to explain it, but it was like my brain was a computer, and something had short-circuited. I couldn’t move, reason, or do anything other than try to think of another plan. I was caught in a loading window.
“There’s the face,” Sing whispered as she walked toward me. “The face of someone lost in their own thoughts, unable to comprehend their own inability, lost to the world because they are trapped in their mind. How long will it take you to find your way out? A season. A year. A decade. A century. Would you like a hint?”
Sing placed her hand on my shoulder as her fangs extended. Davina and Angelica stood to the side, waiting for a signal that would never come. I was aware of everything around me but unable to react.
I’d lost control of my body.
I’d made a grave mistake.
Sing walked around me to whisper in my ear. “I’m going to drain what we need to know from your veins. You won’t be able to stop me, and when I’m done, I will deliver you to our queen so she can play with you. You’re going to wish you had let Lusor kill you at Darksmith.”
I felt my head tilt back, and her fangs entered my throat. My vampiric soul touch skill kicked in as she began to feed, slowing my death, but it didn’t stop me from being helpless.
Davina finally realised something was seriously wrong and took the initiative. “Anglica, command Lusor to fight Yasmir.”
One of the compulsions I had Angelica under forced her to obey Davina during dangerous situations or when someone’s life was in danger.
Angelica didn’t hesitate, turning to Lusor as she slapped her visor closed. “Serve me. Kill Yasmir.”
The force of her compulsion reverberated through my mind, making Sing stop and turn to Angelica with concern.
Lusor’s eyes glazed over as he leapt at Yasmir, transforming into a half-man, half-beast hybrid with claws for fingers. His mutated hands tore into Yasmir’s body as Yasmir tried to keep Lusor’s mouth from reaching his throat.
Davine hit them with a holy wave. She was a lot faster than she used to be, and so was her magic. Yasmir’s skin blackened, under the combined assault, weakening him and creating an opening for Lusor to get his teeth into Yasmir’s throat.
Sing snarled as she leapt at Davina in a blur, only to collide with an Angelica-shaped blur mid-air. Deathfire ignited Sing’s dress as Angelica let loose, immolating her body and staff with black, smoky flames. Sing sensed the change as Yasmir rapidly began to grow weaker and kicked Angelica through a dozen gravestones to leap onto Lusor’s back and sinker her fangs into his throat.
Davina saw how conveniently they were arranged, raised her hand above her head, and then brought it down, summoning a holy fist of light that crashed into all three. We weren’t inside the dungeon, so her mana regeneration only let her throw spells at the weak end of the expert-tier magic. It wasn’t enough to kill ancient vampires of their strength, only weaken them.
Angelica exploded from the rubble and blurred to the fight, stopping just short. She raised her staff and released her dragon’s breath from the tip as Davina brought her holy fist back down on them. It was the wrong move, but I couldn’t move my mouth to tell them.
The holy strike temporarily disabled their regeneration, allowing Angelica’s deathfire to burn through their flesh. Yasmir’s body partially dissolved, freeing him from Lusor’s grasp.
A pair of burning streaks shot out of the inferno in a blur, racing through the streets in a desperate escape. Lusor stepped outside Angelica’s dragon’s breath and stopped as his body healed. He was under her control, but not mindlessly under her control, interpreting the order to fight as an order to fight here.
Angelica turned to Davina and then pointed at me. “What the hell is wrong with him?”
Language!
“I have no idea,” Davina replied. “We need to get out of here before they return with reinforcements.”
“He’s in a mind loop,” Lusor said as Davina picked me up and started running.
***
A crowd shouted questions outside the building as Davina, Angelica, and Lusor stood over me. Davina had carried me all the way to the complex, ordered Gregory to let them in, and then dumped me on a table in the nearest building.
As I lay limp and immobile, she glanced at Lusor. “You said he’s in a mind loop. What does that mean?”
Angelica had layered more compulsions over him while they ran, but not enough. Lusor didn’t answer.
Davina realised the problem. “Angelica, make him answer me.”
“Answer her questions, Lusor.”
Lusor paused, fighting the compulsion before losing a few seconds later. “His mind is trapped solving an impossible problem. This problem consumes all his thoughts, leaving him trapped in his body. It’s one of our few weaknesses.”
“How do you overcome it?”
“You solve the problem.”
“How does he solve the problem?”
“This problem is solved by splitting your mind in two.”
Angelica came up with the solution first. “Lusor, feed him your blood and transfer the memories he needs to understand what to do.”
Lusor gritted his teeth as he fought the compulsion. After several seconds of silence, Davina and Angelica took a step back. Lusor was beginning to break free from her compulsion. At the thirty-second mark, he finally lost.
He opened my mouth with one hand and moved his wrist above the opening. The skin over his wrist parted as he shapeshifted his flesh, making his artery exit his skin and split open. Blood flowed from the artery in a slow, steady trickle as he glared at me, fighting the compulsion.
Sickly cold blood touched my tongue, bringing with it a flood of memories. Lusor was trying to buy himself time by transferring his full experience. It was as informative as it was frustrating. He’d lain in his grave for decades contemplating this problem.
His mind worked identically to mine, suffering from the same inability to make multiple plans for the same scenario. His memories showed me how thoroughly trapped he’d been by the same thought that had me trapped.
He’d solved the problem by separating his mind into two unequal Lusors like he’d said. It was almost like split personalities. One version knew everything he did, and the other one didn’t. This meant they came to different conclusions, offering different solutions. This workaround allowed him to develop multiple solutions and freed his mind from the endless loop of trying to make a second plan.
Now that I knew how, I could split my mind in two.
Except for my morals, everything I knew went into my second mind as I walled off my thoughts. It was a cold calculating mind capable of doing anything. With its creation, there were now two Vincents in my head, with two different capacities.
That change was all it took to snap me out of it.
My mind had the two answers it wanted. They were no longer relevant, but I was free. The first thing I did with my new freedom was destroy the second mind I’d created, so it didn’t try take control.
I then rolled off the table and stepped behind Lusor.
Davina sighed with relief.
Letting Lusor live was too great a risk. He would be free in the next few minutes. I sent a telepathic message to Angelica as I jumped on his back and felt the drain of his vampiric touch. I extended my fangs as I cancelled his vampiric touch with my vampiric soul touch.
Angelica stepped in front of Lusor and unleashed a new command. “Lusor, while Vincent feeds on you, transfer your memories on shapeshifting, then your fighting ability, then your knowledge about magic, then your soul-strengthening knowledge, then your knowledge of vampires and your abilities, and anything you know about making yourself stronger.”
Lusor was not like other vampires. Binding his aura to his flesh had fundamentally changed him. A vampire’s blood normally only held their power. For Lusor, it held everything he was. Centuries of knowledge and soul energy flowed into me as I bit into his throat. With each second, a decade passed as I absorbed the mountain of knowledge he possessed.
Lusor was a brute, a savage, a predator in human skin. He was obsessed with his flesh, with his strength, and with his power. He hadn’t become a vampire by chance but by design. His pursuit of the ultimate form had followed him from life into death. It was his only passion, his only driver, and what kept him from succumbing to the Curse of Sloth.
In the end, Lusor was a simple creature. Powerful. Dangerous. But simple.
As he crumbled to dust, I came away from the experience with his understanding of shapeshifting, his superior hand-to-hand fighting ability, his more advanced understanding of how to assess his opponents, which was fundamentally flawed, his knowledge of soul strengthening and aura control, and his knowledge of vampires and how to make us stronger.
It didn’t make up for my failure to kill Yasmir or Sing, but our encounter wasn’t a complete loss.
Vampires were undead, and Lusor had discovered how to enhance us. My research into the subject had been an utter failure. His wasn’t.
With his knowledge, I shapeshifted, making small changes to my body by rearranging muscles, tendons, and bones to perfect my proportions. Lusor’s memories showed me there were many changes I could make, but I didn’t have time to change more than the basics, so I just improved my muscles, bones, organs, nervous system, and senses.
Sight, sound, taste, touch, and smell all became sharper, showing the world with more details. My bones lengthened along with my muscles and tendons, altering my range of motion to make me more graceful. The changes to the structure of my nervous system and my muscle density increased my reaction time and strength.
It was a form of genetic adaptation, an evolution of human form that my demonic parasites made stronger. However, it was also a form of undead enhancement, so it required mana to maintain.
I pulled my character sheet.
Race: Ancient Royal Vampire Variant
Class: Hero
Level: 35
Strength: 373
Agility: 618
Endurance: ∞
Constitution: ∞
Cunning: 327
Perception: 574
Recovery: ∞
Mana Regeneration: 271
My strength had increased by 33, agility by 98, cunning by 47, and perception by 94, at the cost of 129 mana regeneration. Lusor had been able to triple the attributes our race offered us, but it would take me time to replicate his results. Time, I didn’t have.
There was a ritual we had to stop.
I turned my attention to my familiars and the poor performance I’d seen above. “Davina, what made you think it was wise to cast a spell that includes kinetic force? Lusor had Yasmir trapped, and you tried to knock them apart. You should have hit them with a spell that dealt pure, holy damage, allowing Lusor to kill him faster.”
Davina dropped her gaze. “You were incapacitated.”
“That’s no reason to lose your objectivity. I didn’t state it, but you knew we were there to kill them.”
“You’re in trouble,” Angelica said, grinning.
“Don’t start, Angelica. You’re part of the reason they got away. Your dragon’s breath burned off Lusor’s fingers and enough of Yasmir’s flesh to free him so they could escape. You both screwed up.”
Angelica remained unphased. “My dragon's breath only burned off their flesh because of Davina’s spell. It’s not my fault.”
“I didn’t say it was. You both screwed up. But I screwed up first. I’m the reason they got away. Now, a lot of good people are going to die because of that.”
Angelica lost her grin. “What do you mean?”
“My plan was for you to command Lusor with your armour because he’s weak-willed. With his help, we were going to kill at least one of the others. That would have let us retreat back here with Lusor so I could kill him, leaving us with only two or three ancient vampires to face. Now we have to fight all four with a vampire army backing them up.”
“If we knew-”
“-These aren’t liches, Angelica. Your scent would have given us away if you knew they were walking into a trap. I had to keep you in the dark. It was the only way.”
“But.”
I met Angelica’s gaze. “What comes next isn’t your fault. I had a chance to change the odds. I failed. Now, we have to do this the hard way.”