Giant bone horses trampled vampires and monsters as Vessandrion urged them toward the wall at freeway speeds.
He chanted the magic words.
Bones flew out of his bags of holding, starting a ramp at a few hundred meters away from a section of the walls relatively clear of attackers.
The chariot clattered upward.
Vee looked back to the truck, making sure it was still with them.
Bullets and spells flew as the Watch and wizards fired at the vampires chasing their tails.
She helped them out, sending dozens of vampires into seizures with pinpoint EMP’s triggered right in their heads.
They crested the wall when she noticed their presences in the electromagnetic field. She had been on the lookout for Vukylokyr’s signature.
These were different. Each individual, but mixed with Vukylokyr’s.
Stronger than the pale-skinned vampires assailing the walls.
If those were like candles in the dark, then these 8, maybe 9, were like spotlights.
“We’ve got incoming!”
“I sense them— there!” Deschaina pointed to the top of a guard tower.
Meneldrom was ready.
They shined a holy light from their mythril mace.
The vampire or was it vampire like Bennett? Hung in midair, captured by the light that made his skin blister and smoke.
Deschaina’s bolt launchers thumped.
The vampire vanished in a bright ball of expanding fire.
“Woooo! Justice V!” Skarga roared as she swept her hockey stick-like weapon over the side of the chariot, slapping vampire heads like pucks.
Vee focused.
The vampires, she was sure of that now because their signatures were like Bennett’s, blurred through the throng in the streets, aiming for the truck.
She surrounded the truck with seizure fields, moving them alongside the truck.
Vampires hit them and recoiled, convulsing long enough for the Watch and wizards to get their shots in.
The latter appeared to be conserving their mana with basic attack spells rather than the big, flashy stuff.
She left her stomach at the top of the ramp as they rapidly descended with the truck getting uncomfortably close.
Vessandrion recalled his bones before the vampires could use them.
They landed in a parking lot.
Mostly empty killing grounds.
Bunkers and more towers stood farther ahead.
The vampires went for broke.
They blurred over the walls.
“Go! Do your thing! We’ll keep them busy!” Vee leapt off the chariot, high in the air. Firing a spread of micromissiles from her shoulder launchers.
The vampire about to throw himself at the truck, swerved away.
Meneldrom’s holy light caught it.
She planted the end of her staff in his mouth like a flag. She slashed down with her off-hand. The hardlight blade flared to life, then shattered the instant it made contact with the vampire’s neck. She hit him with an EMP.
He thrashed throwing her off despite her superhuman strength enhanced by the power armor’s artificial muscles.
Skarga roared and pulped his head.
“Is dead now?”
“Probably.”
“I burn.” Skarga took out a small glass globe from her bag of holding. It looked like a marble in her fingers, but would’ve taken up all of Vee’s palm. The cragant dropped it on the vampire.
The alchemical fire flared yellow to green and vanished almost as quickly, leaving nothing but a dark smudge on the asphalt.
“Thanks, Skargs—”
“I am the High Lord of Bones! And your doom!”
Vessandrion was basically a kid.
Sure he was strong enough at his normal level to lift a grown man in one hand and throw him through a wall. Not to mention uncanny agility, dexterity and… well… every physical attribute really.
Add his magic to that and she could reasonably expect him to be mostly safe unless he was going one on one with Vukylokyr.
The problem was that there were several vampires blurring around trying to get at them and the wizards.
She snapped several EMP’s to keep the vampires off their backs as they sped away deeper into the campus.
The thing was they knew from Bennett that vampires could basically spec down different paths.
Some paths went down the enhancement of their physical attributes.
As Vessandrion found out when a slip of a woman vampire sent bone chips flying with a single punch to his chest.
Bone spikes erupted at the vampire’s feet, forcing her back.
A second vampire blurred in and scored deep cuts in the bone armor covering his back.
Spikes shot out, piercing the vampire in multiple places.
A bone saw emerged at the end of multi-jointed arm on his shoulder.
It buzzed.
Red splattered.
Red fountained.
The vampire’s head hit the asphalt with a wet thud.
Meneldrom swept his holy light around them like a lighthouse.
Vampire flesh blistered and smoked.
Deschaina Skills let her make impossible shots with her two-fisted bolt launchers.
It didn’t matter how fast the vampires moved, they couldn’t seem to dodge her special bolts as easily as they could a standard bullet.
Skarga moved over to the Stone Lord and the Dominion human, standing watch over them like an angry mother bear, except much larger and stronger and armed with enchanted gear and Skills.
“Des!” Vee pointed.
A blur chased the truck.
She hit it with an EMP.
A bolt exploded it a split-second after.
The vampires went into a frenzy.
As if they just got the call to go all in.
They clearly wanted to stop the wizards, but to that they had to get past the Justice V.
A vampire with long, flowing blond hair that waved in the non-existent breeze and not enough clothing fluttered her long lashes and licked her striking red lips at Deschaina.
Meneldrom sent her shrieking with a blast of holy light.
Vessandrion created a tangled forest of bone to slow the vampires while protecting the team’s backs.
Blood spears struck bone shields.
Bone spears struck blood shields.
A monster made of shadows closed its maw around Skarga, who roared a Skill and somehow broke its shadow teeth. She raised her stick and brought it down until the shadow monster dissipated like mist.
Vee spun her staff and smacked the top of a mohawked vampire’s head.
The crack of the skull didn’t slow him down as he plowed a shoulder into her chest.
Fangs tried to bite through her neck armor.
She sent him into a seizure, kicked him off and hit him with her one shot flame thrower deployed from the underside of her armored arm.
The vampire went up like a torch, shrieking like an animal.
A bone scythe swept out of nowhere and ended his suffering.
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome, elder sister.”
“Watch out!”
A huge blur crashed through bone to tackle Vessandrion.
They brawled across the asphalt like drunken douchebags rather than the supposedly supernaturally graceful creatures they were.
The blond vampire turned into mist and flowed through the bone forest to reappear behind Meneldrom.
She hissed, clawing across his stout arm.
His gray skin was closer to stone than flesh.
She drew thin red lines at the cost of sharp nails torn from her fingers.
She went for a bite, but he jammed his thick fingers into her mouth.
Then he cast a spell.
When the light cleared, there was nothing left but her skeleton, which crumbled to ash with a shake of his hand.
Deschaina filled the open spaces in the tangled bones with bolts while Skarga guarded her back.
The vampires couldn’t get to them.
“Bone Storm!”
Vee cursed, but her team was used to it.
Meneldrom covered his face with his arms.
Deschaina crouched low while the heavily-armored Skarga covered her.
Vee rushed over to Vessandrion and the big vampire kicking his ass.
Jagged bones swirled around them as if caught in a tornado.
They cut the vampire, impaled the other vampires.
The instant they stopped being hard to hit moving targets she slapped EMP’s in their heads.
“Cut the spell, Vess!” she snapped.
The big vampire twitched even as he had one hand around Vessandrion’s bone-covered face and one meaty fist poised to drop another punch.
She spun her staff and cracked him in the back of the head.
Vessandrion morphed the bone covering his hand into a sharp blade that sliced through the vampire’s thick neck.
Justice V dispatched the rest of the vampires with holy light, enchanted bolts, a bone blade and giant sized boots.
“Maybe you start with that next time, Vess,” Deschaina said.
“Is dangerous for softer humans,” Skarga said. “Vess had wait for other humans to get far.”
The young High regarded the bodies.
“Elder sister, were they not supposed to burst into flames or crumble to dust. Like the one, Meneldrom slew?”
“Not unless you burn them. Speaking of which…”
Out came the alchemical fire bombs.
It was at that moment that a wave of pale-skinned vampires finally managed to climb the wall.
They screeched to the dark night before flowing down toward them like a rogue wave.
“Don’t let them get past us,” Vee said.
The wizards needed time, not to mention all the people in the shelters.
Vessandrion unhooked his bone horses from the chariot with a gesture.
They ran wild, stomping, kicking and biting through the mass of vampires before eventually being broken into pieces.
Skarga beat her stick on the ground, cracking the asphalt while Deschaina climbed up the cragant’s back. The thick armor had built in places for people to put their feet and handles to hold at the shoulder.
The towering cragant charged with a warcry, sweeping her stick through the throng and sending vampires flying with each hit.
Deschaina fired bolts that exploded with fire, froze with ice and melted with acid.
“Do you have enough mana left for a platform?”
“Of course, elder sister.”
Vessandrion raised the three of them on a platform of bone.
Meneldrom continued to shine his holy light powered by a seemingly bottomless well of faith.
Despite his confident words, Vessandrion revealed the truth by the fact that he was reduced to firing bone darts, granted he couldn’t miss easily with how many vampires and how tightly packed they were as they tried to trip Skarga or climb up her legs.
Vee kept hitting them with pulses, but she was starting to get worried.
More kept coming over the wall and the defenders at this section were dead judging by the lack of fire.
How many people had been murdered since the sun had gone down?
Too many from the looks of it.
She saw the people of the city in the clothing they wore.
Soldier gear, relaxing at home clothes, pajamas.
Saw it in the men, women and children turned into pale-skinned, bloodthirsty vampires.
“There won’t be anyone left if this isn’t stopped soon,” she whispered.
“I believe the end is approaching, elder sister,” Vessandrion said. “I sense the wizards’ ritual. I think I know what they intend.”
“Don’t say another word.”
“I know. The enemies eyes and ears are everywhere. This Vukylokyr has been watching, listening to us through his servants and thralls this whole time. It is quite powerful, though I believe my master would be able to defeat it.”
That was when the sky tore open.
----------------------------------------
Death everywhere he walked.
Bennett moved through the shadows.
Dark city streets filled with vampires, monsters and people battling each other.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
Emergency shelters were under siege.
Steel doors ripped open.
Walls breached.
The sweet blood was everywhere.
Explosions lit up the night sky.
He could hear people dying for blocks all around him. He closed his senses to the sounds.
To act would reveal himself to Vukylokyr.
Hanna had freed him from the ancient vampire’s bonds of blood and in doing so, somehow made it think that he had perished.
Its immense presence was in the air, pressing down, but he was certain that his presence slipped beneath it like a whisper of silk sheets.
He would have one chance to act.
Not to kill it himself since he was nowhere near strong enough.
He would have to be a pebble in the gears of a complicated machine.
One small act among many, but crucial.
He found them battling near the hospital, over the freeway and surrounding buildings.
Remy continually pulled metal from the environment to bind Vukylokyr, while the ancient vampire tore free almost as quickly.
Dark clouds, bats, birds and other small creatures swarmed the Threnium-armored Remy only to be cut to pieces by the thousands of small blades flying around him in swarms of their own.
The way the glittered whenever they caught the lights from the buildings and the explosions almost reminded Bennett of tiny, blooming flowers.
Below the aerial struggle, Tessa swung her kanabo one-handed.
Her missing arm seemed to point at him in accusation.
Though he had played no direct part in its destruction, he accepted the condemnation.
The dark metal pulped vampire heads with each swing.
They had been people less than an hour ago. They had thought themselves safe in their homes, safe behind the walls.
He had taken that from them. And they in turn had taken it from others.
A vampire tried to conceal his presence amid the rest of the pale-skinned throng to sneak up behind her.
Bennett almost intervened as the vampire leapt, but a bang rang out, punching the vampire in the chest.
The back of Tessa’s armor closed as she turned and shot her kanabo straight through the vampire’s chest with a resounding bang.
The vampire dropped to his knees, shock writ on his pale face. The gaping hole where his heart had been gushed red down his front and back.
Tessa reached her hand out, as if to touch his face.
The kanabo returned to her as fast as it had flown out. She turned again and brought it down, popping a vampire’s head.
Behind her the headless corpse spilled red across the freeway.
So much of it had already been shed across six lanes.
Tessa’s boots splashed as she moved, splattering the dark gray of her armor with more red.
Vukylokyr shrieked.
Shed blood erupted, throwing Tessa off the freeway to the dark streets below, flaming like the wreckage of a jet shot out of the sky.
Burning blood took the shape of a giant serpent with countless clawed hands that reached dozens of feet into the sky.
Remy’s metal swarms tore into it, but it was mostly liquid.
Every cut reformed as quickly as it had been made.
Less so for the pale-skinned vampires that had hitched a ride.
They leapt at Remy with fangs bared only to be cut to pieces.
Vukylokyr turned the losses to gains as it moved their blood into the giant serpent.
It snapped after Remy.
He pulled the metal from the freeway, collapsing the section the blood serpent was on.
The debris cloud bloomed.
Remy burst out of it.
Vukylokyr, only partially bound by metal, followed a split-second later.
Remy forced the ancient vampire back into the dust and ripped a power line from a nearby freeway light.
Sparks and dust didn’t mix well or mixed perfectly, depending on what one hoped to get out of it.
Bennett figured Remy got exactly what he wanted as the subsequent explosion shattered windows across several city blocks.
Supernatural senses pierced the smoke.
Bennett saw the blood.
Not all of it had burned.
Being under the ancient vampire’s direct control made it exponentially more resilient than normal blood.
It coalesced into a swirling orb around the form he was incapable of seeing, both physically and metaphysically.
He wanted to warn Remy about the build up of power hidden by the dust and darkness, but the time wasn’t right.
Magic swelled to near-bursting.
A wet, red spear as thick around as a person’s body lanced into the sky.
Remy formed a thick shield of metal.
Layers burned white hot as the spear pressed.
He added more metal to the back as the front disintegrated.
Bloody tendrils whipped out of the dust to bind Remy’s wrists and legs.
He cut them with much diminished blade swarms, but the liquid re-formed just as quickly.
Bennett sensed something attempting to disrupt the ancient vampire’s magic by attacking the energy with waves of another type of energy.
He didn’t know what it was, but it reminded him of the natural aura all living things generated.
Regardless, the attempt wasn’t working.
There was just too much power in Vukylokyr’s spell.
Looking at it through his supernatural senses reminded Bennett of what it was like looking at the sun decades ago when he could still walk under its light.
Oh to feel the sun’s rays without pain one last time.
The blood spear burned through the metal shield, striking Remy in the chest.
Threnium lasted longer, but as Tessa had learned it wasn’t invulnerable.
Matte gray went from red to white as Bennett moved closer across the rooftops.
It grew too bright for him to see until it stopped.
Remy’s chest armor smoked.
Gray Threnium had been melted only to reveal a thin layer of metal.
It shined like silver, yet he could sense the magic contained within.
He had heard of it.
A metal ore that was naturally magical.
That took enchantments better than any other metal, yet paradoxically acted as a sort of null object when subjected to outside spells.
Jake had been so excited describing the mythril Remy had brought back from another world. His friend’s only regret was that there was only a hundred pounds of the stuff.
A bat landed on Bennett’s shoulder.
Not all night creatures belonged to Vukylokyr.
He had taken control a scant handful and spread them through out the city.
When he had been under Vukylokyr's thralldom he had access to everything the ancient vampire could sense. The better for it to show him the carnage to hurt him and shatter his spirit.
There had been something strange going on all over the city.
Ritual magic, yet for some reason the ancient vampire had struggled to pin it down.
Now that it was distracted, Bennett had sent his small creatures searching.
They only found a few sites, but it was enough.
Especially, when he saw through their eyes what was happening at SCC.
The wizards were almost done with their ritual.
Vukylokyr had sent the rest of the vampires in an attempt to stop them, but they had failed thanks to Vee and her team.
So strange, other species, people from another world.
The scholar in him wished he had the opportunity to ask them so many questions, but it wasn’t meant to be. That man had died a long time ago. When he had gained the vampire class. The intervening years had been a mirage. A fool’s dream that lied to him. That told him the class didn’t matter to his ability to continue being a scholar.
If only he could have been a scholar instead.
Time approached for the ending.
Vukylokyr rose up through the broken freeway on a platform of swirling blood.
The serpent, much diminished, coiled around him protectively, baring fangs in a soundless hiss at Remy.
The man’s face was pale behind his helmet, blood leaked from his nose and eyes. He flicked his hands at the ancient vampire as if throwing darts.
Metal swarms glittered in the night as they dived from multiple directions.
Dark swarms rose up to meet them.
Bennett couldn’t help but feel bad for the bats.
The creatures just wanted to exist, to live their lives as nature intended.
He had always been cognizant of that. Never spending their lives needlessly when he was in need of their services.
As for the buzzing insects?
He was less affected by their destruction.
The ancient vampire raised a clawed hand at the same time the blood serpent struck. It plunged its glowing hand into the wet body.
Light blazed up the serpent’s innards, spraying out of its mouth as a fiery liquid when it reached Remy.
He formed a metal sphere around himself, dropping to the ground, only to emerge shooting hundreds of thin spikes from the sphere.
The same interference crackled across Bennett’s supernatural senses.
It rippled across the air toward Vukylokyr.
The ancient vampire froze in place. Its face suddenly revealed frozen in a rictus of pain.
The moment passed quickly enough that Bennett wasn’t sure if he had truly seen it.
Uncanny beauty.
Horrid nightmare.
Spikes cut through the shield of blood.
He couldn’t see how many struck home. Could only tell by the number of spikes that continued out into the night.
Tessa chose that moment to rejoin the fight.
She stood on the street, below the freeway, holding a car over her head.
The long bang made Bennett grimace.
He hadn’t be prepared.
The 1 ton missile slammed into the bottom of Vukylokyr’s blood platform, punching through and shooting the ancient vampire up into the dark sky where Remy was waiting.
A giant metal hammer coalesced and smote Vukylokyr against the car suspended in midair like an anvil.
Blood fell like rain.
The serpent wavered before splashing onto the freeway.
It wasn’t over.
Vukylokyr was more than a mere physical body.
The lake of blood on the surface of the freeway bubbled.
Tendrils shot up and down.
Ugly, evil spells filled the air.
Remy flew, twisting this way and that as he showered metal rain down.
Tessa cursed and ran, swinging her kanabo over her head as the hard, sharp blood struck her armor.
Bennett reached the side of the freeway hidden in shadow.
It was time.
The night sky vibrated.
It started with a small tear, barely visible hundreds of feet above them.
Then, like a zipper being opened, it grew.
Light!
Sunlight peeked through!
The rays fell down on them.
The blood began to boil and steam as the tear widened to encompass the entire city
Bennett felt it begin to burn through the shadows as the comforting darkness vanished.
Across the city, the vampires out in the open burned to ash in seconds.
Those fortunate to be inside lasted only a little longer as the sudden debilitating sunlight shined through holes in roofs and broken windows.
Desperate people seized the last second reprieve and turned the tide.
Everywhere, vampires died while people lived.
Vukylokyr emerged from the blood.
A wet red figure taller than Bennett.
The body took shape revealed for the first time by the sun’s warm light.
Pale-skinned.
Naked.
Beautiful and terrible in equal parts.
One wanted to prostrate in worship at the ancient vampire’s feet while fleeing in blind terror at the same time.
It lacked any features indicating gender.
As if the body had been created without the purpose of natural life in mind.
The ancient vampire blurred towards the gaping hole in the freeway and the relief of the darkness.
If it could get out of the sunlight it could find a way to escape.
Bennett knew its mind.
The bond had gone both ways.
Survive and return.
Such was its way.
The Crimson Era had been denied before, but never for long.
It had eternity after all.
The chattel that had slowed it down did not.
It would wait in the darkness. A blade hanging over their heads. They would never know another easy night. No safety in the dark. For it would lurk in their shadows until their dying days.
Sudden magic struck.
Bright walls of purple light boxed Vukylokyr in.
The hospital roof!
Gene stood there. One eye blazed purple.
Olo stood beside him, covering him with a shield.
The ancient vampire shattered the purple wall with a single strike.
A pained cry echoed through the night turned day.
Pale skin smoked and began to blister.
Metal snakes burst out of the freeway, trying to coil around the ancient vampire as it continued its dash to safety.
Be the pebble that diverts the avalanche.
Bennett dashed out of the shadows in a blur.
They obeyed his commands, turning into tendrils that tripped the ancient vampire.
He lost control of them a split-second later.
Vukylokyr’s mastery of what felt like every vampire path was unchallenged.
The tendrils turned on Bennett, whipping, stabbing.
He blurred past them and slammed into the ancient vampire.
It was like running into the side of a cliff.
Bones broke all over his body.
He burned the blood within to heal.
“You spurn my gift to side with chattel. With food.”
Words didn’t matter now.
Bennett opened wide and sank his fangs into the ancient vampire’s neck.
Teeth chipped on the marble-hard flesh, but managed to penetrate.
The blood flowed in a trickle, but he sucked it up greedily.
Such power!
It surged through his body, giving him the strength to hold on.
“Fool. I am the blood! I was kind to you earlier. Now I will truly make you suffer— how? How are you resisting me? None may refuse when I have entered them!”
Bennett felt the blood trying to take control of him as it had before.
Thank you my friend, he thought.
Hanna had set him free and she continued to do so.
“The Sword of Freedom? Such classes have always been problematic. No matter. Her Skill cannot keep you from my grasp forever. She will suffer at your hands. Her death will last decades. Then she will serve me. Her class as broken as her soul.”
Bennett released his bite and took one last breath.
“Throw us into the portal!”
The moment he caught Remy’s eyes seemed to last an eternity.
That was how it was, wasn’t it?
When death came one held on to the last threads of his life as hard as he could no matter how prepared he thought he was.
Metal flowed around them, sealing them inside a cocoon of blackness.
Bennett felt his limbs break as the ancient vampire thrashed.
The sensation of sudden, violent flight followed.
Metal shrieked as Vukylokyr’s claws tore it, letting in rays of burning sunlight.
The portal closed the instant they had been sent through.
Vukylokyr tore the coffin asunder.
The black void greeted them.
The burning orb millions of miles away was a bright white, not yellow like it was when viewed from the surface of the planet.
Bennett heard the wordless shrieks in his head.
They both burned.
Fire without oxygen?
The scholar in him would have enjoyed exploring the mechanics of that. The beast within the vampire howled in fury at its impending end.
As for the man?
Bennett looked at the blue, green orb.
Home.
He stared until he was nothing but ashes drifting in the void.
Vukylokyr lasted much longer.
It tried to cast its own teleportation spell, but it couldn’t do it and it didn’t know why not.
It flew toward the planet with its body on fire.
The distance was much greater than it looked.
But, it began to hope as it drew closer.
It could hide beneath the clouds or the ocean depths or it could make it to the dark side of the planet.
There was always life for it to sustain itself long enough to make its way to a place with sapient blood.
Then it would create a Crimson Era of sheer suffering for the inhabitants.
It could do no less for vengeance.
Seven generations.
It would punish this world’s inhabitants for seven generations.
Close now.
It felt the change as it crossed out of the empty void and into the world’s living aura.
The fires had burned out its eyes, but it didn’t need them to see.
Spells—
Something struck it.
The booms reached its ears after.
In panic it realized that it was being pushed back into the void at tremendous speed.
Its mouth opened in a soundless shriek as safety rapidly grew out of its reach.
Down in Sacramento, Tessa stared up.
“Got it. Out of range, but I didn’t see it get away from the chunk.”
Remy had formed a large, dense mass of metal.
Several tons worth that she had then shot into Vukylokyr with targeting assistance from her helmet.
“Interference is gone, so we can aim one of the satellites its way just to make sure,” Remy said.
“Yeah. That seems like a better idea than just waiting for the Quest notification.”
“Head over to mom and get your arm taken care of.”
“Nah, it can wait. Plenty of other people need healing more than me. Besides, we need to make sure that all the vampires are dead. They need to be set free.”
Remy sighed.
“I’ll have to check Reno. They probably all came here, but you’re right. I have to make sure they don’t spread.”
“Man…” Tessa let out a breath. “Bennett’s gone…”
“You sure?”
“Pretty sure. I saw him burning. Then nothing.” She shrugged. She tried to muster up some emotion for the brave man’s sacrifice. Struggled to square everything with the shy, slightly creepy guy she had known from when she was younger. But, experience had taught her that they didn’t get away without pain when they fought the real monsters. “We still have work to do. We can mourn later.”
“Your uncle will check to make sure.”
It took another hour before the sun completed the scouring of every drop of Vukylokyr.
----------------------------------------
Congratulations!
You have completed a Quest.
Survive Vukylokyr and the Dawning of the Crimson Era.
Individual Reward: 250000 Universal Points.
Congratulations!
You have completed a Quest.
Defeat Vukylokyr.
Individual Rewards: 1,057,180 Universal Points. 9 free attribute points. Vampire Bane Spell Code.
Congratulations!
You have completed a Quest.
Protect your city.
Individual lives saved: 118652/137043.
Rew—
Congratulations!
You ha—
Con—