“Last chance, Fallon.” Arnold dug his heels into the moth hole ridden carpet, holding his ax in two hands. He was putting on a good show of force, but Nathan knew the man was dead tired. If it truly came down to another fight, Arnold didn’t have much gas left in the tank.

And neither did Nathan.

Fallon stood over David’s body. The kid looked like a corpse. Skin pale as snow, chest rising and falling with only the subtlest hint of movement, eyes closed, and what looked like a tube inserted into each wrist. Like he was a patient at a hospital and they were drawing blood.

“My last chance?” Fallon’s eye twitched. He stabbed one of the knives down into the wooden altar, sinking the blade in a good inch. “You came here!” he roared. “You decimate my guild, turn my home into a battlefield, and then give me an ultimatum?”

“Don’t feign to be innocent,” growled Arnold.

“David came here!” Fallon bellowed. The yell filled the room like a thunderclap. “I didn’t steal him from his bed like a fucking fairy tale villain. If you can’t control the boy, then I will.” Nathan felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end, the unfamiliar urge to flee growing within him. Arnold seemed to shrink down from the sheer force of it.

Fallon raised a clawed hand above his head, squeezing so that his talon-like fingers pierced his own palm. Blood prickled out, swelling to bulbous drops, and then fell, splashing on David’s pallid form.

The vampire started to chant, crimson smoke coalescing around its hand. Nathan was having none of it. Flames erupted upon his palm and he leapt forward. He could tell that his connection to the Threads was still weak, he had not fully recovered, but he didn’t have time to wait.

One Echo still called from within him, desiring to be let out. Nathan summoned it. The black cloaked figure of the man Nathan had killed on the way to the man formed from flames beside him, falling into step.

Fallon started, caught off guard by Nathan’s abilities, the summoning of the Echo. His stupor did not last for long. The vampire lunged forward, his body blurring with a strange blackness. He was not underestimating Nathan. Good, perhaps it would be an interesting fight.

A fang-like dagger plunged for Nathan’s neck, moving with inhuman speed. Had Nathan been alone, he may have been dead. But he was not alone.

The Echo deflected the blow, swatting it down with the strike of a blazing emerald sword, and howling all the while. It stalked around Nathan as Fallon retreated in a flutter of flapping cape and twisting shadows, reappearing several feet back. It hadn’t quite been teleportation, but it was more than simple movement.

Arnold was running toward David, ignoring the melee in the room.

Fallon bellowed, moving as a writhing shadow once again, but Nathan was there, positioning himself between the vampire and the altar. “You’re not getting by me so easily,” he hissed.

Their weapons flashed in the suffocating darkness. Bursts of clashing steel rang out, explosions of verdant fire. Like fireworks in the night sky, quick and powerful.

Fallon growled like an animal, lunging at Nathan again, trying to break past his guard and get at Arnold. He twisted, pouring more power into his flames, and slammed his fist into the vampire’s jaw with a snap.

The creature was flung backward, rolling in a heap across the dirty ground. Like a pouncing tiger that sensed weakness, the Echo flung itself forward, flaming blade lashing out. Nathan ran up to reinforce it as its emerald sword stabbed down, over and over, into the mound that was Fallon. Anger burned like righteous fury in Nathan’s chest.

“Sink back into your coffin,” Nathan growled. He stabbed his own blade down. It was met with little resistance. As if there was nothing underneath the pile of cloth.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

Shit.

A shadow streaked out, gliding across the ground, nearly imperceptible. Nathan was too slow to react to it. How could he have? The shadow passed along the ground, moving like a slithering snake. It stopped by the altar, growing into the form of Fallon, his fangs gleaming white.

Arnold was too busy trying to figure out how to safely get David off the altar and out of there. He never saw the vampire looming over his shoulder, staring at him with hungry, gluttonous eyes.

“Arnold!” Nathan shouted, extinguishing his flames and reaching out with one hand. The man looked up, confused. Fallon’s hand grasped the man by the back of his shirt and threw him like a ragdoll across the room.

Arnold had never even seen it coming. He cried out as he landed hard on the ground, sliding a good dozen feet and thudding into the iron door. What happened next seemed to almost be in slow motion.

Fallon’s fangs sunk into David’s exposed neck. Crimson liquid flowed out and Fallon greedily lapped it up. Arnold screamed, tears wetting his dark eyes. Nathan and the Echo charged forward, howling and yelling, their feet slapping on the cold ground.

They both moved to swing their weapons into the vampire. Nathan on the left, the fiery emerald Echo on the right. Swords flashed in the air like an enormous pair of shears, aimed for Fallon’s neck.

But they never hit.

A pane of ruby colored glass materialized in the air before the strikes, and the blades crashed into them. It felt like swinging at a cinder block. It sounded worse. His blade rattled, sending the force of his strike back up his arms.

Nathan yelled and fell back a few stumbling steps, his sword falling to his side as he clenched his jaw. The Echo continued to beat on the blood-red barrier that now fully encased both Fallon and David. The dull thuds, echoing in the vast room. Fallon stood inside the barrier, drawing a finger along the length of David’s chin.

And the vampire laughed.

“I applaud your effort,” Fallon said, his tone mocking. Crimson dripped from the corners of his wickedly grinning mouth. “But it’s over now.”

Nathan had no mind to listen to the taunts of the vampire. He could rant and monologue as much as he wanted inside his little red bubble. He would have to come out at some point. Wouldn’t he?

Arnold limped up to the barrier, placing his palms flat against it. Thin streaks of wet fell from his eyes, carving lines down his face. Nathan hated to see it. Partially because he’d grown to like the man and his nephew in the short days they’d known each other, partially because he knew he’d caused even more pain and agony in his past life.

How could he hate Fallon? What did the man do that Nathan himself had not done? Kill for his own benefit? For power? For wealth, status, or because someone told him to? Nathan had done it all.

But still he hated him.

Over the next minute, he soon realized that nothing passed through the ruby barrier. Not blade, not flame, not even Arnold’s strange, pale magic. It seemed impenetrable. Fallon just sat on the other side, inches away, yet untouchable, lecturing Arnold for his folly.

So Nathan did the only other thing that he could think to do at this moment. He sat down, crossed his legs and placed his hands on his knees, and tried to go back into his mind. As he had when he first created his Veil.

It came much easier this time. Within seconds, he found himself in the strange dark world. Sitting, or perhaps floating, in the vastness of the void, infinite Threads stretching infinitely around him. Veins, roots, connections. The essence of magic in this world.

If those were the Threads, he should be able to find something there. Right? He didn’t even know what he was looking for, he just knew that he wasn’t going to find anything out there.

He’d done something by plucking the thick Thread that led into his chest back when he’d created his Veil. But he didn’t know what.

A scream pierced the recesses of his mind, haunting. He didn’t have time to waste studying this. He needed to move now. Lives depended on him.

With ethereal fingers he grasped the same Thread as before, feeling its weight, its power. It felt… less, than it had before. But that did not make it meek. Like an archer drawing a bow, Nathan pulled. Further and further than the first time, till he was worried it might snap. Then… he let go.

A wave of nauseating power washed over him. He was thrust from his mind, expelled like vomit, back into the real world. No time to think, he stumbled to his feet, hand grabbing at his temple as a throbbing headache threatened to overwhelm him.

Negative pressure.

Blade in hand, Nathan strode toward the crystalline ruby wall. Everything inside was painted in hues of crimson. Fallon glared at him with narrowed red eyes. Like a wolf watching a caged rabbit.

He leveled the tip of his sword against the shield, right on the opposite side of Fallon, and thrust. It sank up to the hilt.