The Forsaken Abbey

[Okimiyage]

The Sanctuary of Vikteren d'Argnet

 

[Okimiyage]

Vikteren lay on the damp flagstones of the chapel. He did not breathe, he did not stir, and though his eyes were open, they were muddy and staring and unseeing. There was a feeling of terrible emptiness that rose from his body.
Throughout the abbey, the sound of water--drip, drip, drip--echoed through the winding corridors, about alcoves overcome with ivy. Through the windows, high in the chapel's nave, rain blew in all but sideways. Though thunder rolled in the distance, and lightning cracked like a whip of light across the sky, the vampire did not rise. He was--'dreaming', although dreaming was not exactly it. Through room after room he walked; some of them were rooms from the country manor where he'd grown up, some of them belonged to the abbey--once or twice he found himself in the rooms where Cyrus had held his court. Some of the rooms, he did not remember. In the Mirror Room of Satis House, he recognized Antha out of the corner of his gaze, dashing through the reflections and laughing, but he could not stop to chase her.
Gradually, Vikteren became aware that someone was following him through the rooms. He could hear their footsteps distantly behind him, and they were growing louder. Not only was he being followed; they were catching up.  

[Okimiyage]

Vikteren awoke to a nightmare.
The twisted visage of a monster filled his vision, nothing but scarred skin and broken bone structure. There was not enough time to even throw up a hand to defend himself before the world tilted and spun, and the monster fell away from him in space as Vikteren was lifted and thrown bodily into the wall.
His spine shattered; the stones of the abbey walls splintered under the force of the impact, and the vampire left smears of blood on the wall as he slid to the floor.
His visitor was laughing. No--giggling. A high-pitched, mocking sound; an inhuman sounds, the equivalent of nails on a chalkboard on one's mind. "You--you are too much."
Vikteren groaned as his spine began to re-knit, lifting himself up on his elbows, his palms. Blood dripped from his mouth as he raised his head. "You're sleeping in a--" ha ha ha, ah ha-- "--a ******** church. Oh! Oh--this is too much!" Doubling over, the sound of the monster's merriment echoed about the high ceiling of the sanctuary.
There was blood in Vikteren's throat, making his voice rasp like rough stone. "Who are you? Who sent you?"
"You--" the monster stopped laughing. Slowly, it raised itself up, and its eyes glittered. "I never thought you were stupid, Vikteren-dee-Argnet."
The monster blurred, briefly, and a hand closed about Vikteren's throat, and a face--the remains of a face--was suddenly within centimeters of his own. The callused, blackened lips curled. "Don't you recognize me?--Vikky?"
Vikteren froze. There was only one person who called him that.
"Lisaveta," he breathed.
"Very good." The monster crooned. Sitting back from him, she smiled--a grotesque parody of the expression, as her skin cracked and broke and bled and healed within a matter of seconds. "You should be able to figure out answer to your latter question without much difficulty now, hmm?"
Vikteren shut his eyes, feeling Lisaveta's fingers tightening around his neck. "Where is he?" he whispered.
"On his way." Lisaveta answered, carelessly. Leaning in, she pressed her rough cheek to his; she inhaled his scent, nuzzled his ear--"Look at me, Vikky. Look at me."
Vikteren opened his eyes. His voice was flat as he answered her, "Don't call me that."
The monster pulled away. "Vikky," she purred. "You used to like it."
Something inside him snapped, as the final pieces of his spine popped into place.
"Get--OFF me!" he roared. The thunderous cracking of centuries-old wood resounded throughout the church, as the rows of pews parted like the Red Sea. Slowly, picking splinters of wood from her flesh, Lisaveta rose from the debris. Vikteren was standing now, his shoulders tense. "Get out," he growled. "Now."
Lisaveta rolled her shoulders back with a grunt. "Rude. And after I came all this way to wake you up. To warn you."
"You have ten seconds to leave," he hissed. "No--make that five."
"But, Vikky--"
"Four."
"Well."
"Three."
Silence.
"Two."
"You don't have to be an a*****e about it."
"One."
For an instant, their eyes locked. That hadn't changed, at least. Brown eyes, the color of honey and amber, and for a moment--while their gazes held, despite Vikteren's mad green stare--it seemed as though the monster intended to remain.
But then her figure blurred once again, and Lisaveta was gone in a screech of metal. The door to the abbey had been wrenched from its hinges.
Slowly, Vikteren leaned back against the wall, and felt his own blood seeping through his shirt, wetting his back.  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

"You have a lot more s**t in your past than we thought, don't you?" Pushing himself away from the wall upon which he had been leaning, Nicolae began picking his way through the debris, over splintered wood until he stood relatively close to Vikteren, glancing boredly around himself as if he were merely inspecting the place. "Scratch that, I don't care. But before you tell me I have no business here, and whoever's coming---that is what I heard, isn't it? Something about someone coming? You seem mildly terrified, you know---let me save you the trouble and inform you that I do." There was something odd about his air tonight, something lanky and sure of himself, yet oddly detached. "I had a long, long talk with my maker you see, about my future, and the future of this city." He ran his fingers briefly along the wall beside which he walked before flicking the dust from them, letting his gaze settle casually upon Vikteren. "I've just been declared the third coven master of the city in Sleet's place."
This was where he paused, his light, bored demeanor growing quietly more serious, his gaze steadier. Clearly, he had a point in all of this. "You'll have to pardon my timing, I didn't know you had company. You should really let Antha know you're all right, you know. She went running after you in the rain last night, not that she could pick up your trail, and wandering around in the cold and rain, in her condition, well..." He gave a small shake of his head, tousling his little golden curls, and a dismissive wave of his hand. "Anyways, back to my point. Again, I acknowledge my bad timing---or perhaps it is perfect timing, if you fear whoever this is that is coming as much as you look like you do---" He sat himself demurely down upon a fallen chunk of overturned wood, his legs crossed and hands folded upon his knees. If Antha had seen him in that moment, he knew she would have set him on fire on the spot because he looked so perfectly like Julien that it was ******** disturbing. "---I need a second in command and, quite frankly, you are the only one who fits the bill."
He bit his tongue before he said anything about how happy Antha might be if he chose to take the job, and how she wouldn't settle for anyone else. Of course she was going to pull the strings, no one had any real power in the city unless they opposed her, and then they were simply crushed like irritating insects. Everyone else was simply a subject of Princess Mayfair.  

[Okimiyage]

Vikteren didn't seem surprised to hear Nicolae's voice in the chapel. Or perhaps he had simply used up his supply of shock for the day. Opening his eyes, green as the swamp in summer, he gave Nicolae a once-over, and a smile more half-dead than not. So they'd made Nicolae their pick. Good. Vikteren thought, in the light-headed manner that severe blood loss tended to inspire. Maybe the responsibility would settle him down. "I congratulate you." he said, and lifted himself off the wall, straightened, and bowed to Nicolae. The fresh red stain on the back of his shirt had the semblance, if one was inclined to such comparisons, of an exotic, barbarically beautiful flower.
Vikteren came forward, to stand beside one of the demolished pews with a sigh. Running his hand over the elaborately decorated aisle-ends--on this one, gargoyles with bugged eyes and protruding tongues peeked out from among lush carved foliage--he said--his voice so empty that it hurt--"Antha and I both have separate business to attend to. I would have only been out of my place." Then, pushing the aisle-end over, Vikteren looked to the new coven-master. "Your offer is kind. But I am afraid I must decline; it is no longer safe for me to remain in this city. It is no longer safe for those around me. By this gesture, you would only be inviting more trouble upon yourself--more than you know--and I think that you will have enough to contend with, if you are to be the third coven-master of Osiris City." His mouth twisted up in a wry little smile; as if declining Nicolae's offer was of no consequence, although many vampires would have fought and killed for the influence and respect such a position might entail. Perhaps, to Vikteren, it was of no consequence. Certainly, he seemed to have--other things on his mind. "How much of that did you witness?" he asked, quietly, not looking at Nicolae. "What did you hear of that which was spoken?"  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

"Oh, I came in at about 'Where is he?'." He didn't look at Vikteren as he spoke, not at first, but rather busied himself picking nonexistent dirt from under his nails. When he did look up and settle his gaze upon the other vampire, it was something between amused and poisonous. "Well that will never do," he murmured, brushing back his golden curls, "Antha would never forgive you. And this would be after she tracks you down and drags you back, as you know she will. I mean come on, how stupid are you?" He gave a short bark of laughter, shaking his head, and came to his feet. "It's too bad about your decision, though. She's not going to be happy with it. Come to think of it, she's just going to be really, really pissed on the whole, what with you declining my offer and then trying to skip town." Another short, booming laugh as he began a slow saunter back the way he'd came, inspecting his surroundings again. "Whoever this person is, you do realize you are safest around Antha, yes? What are you going to do, run off to some other place and put other people in danger without any chance of one of them being strong enough to lend a hand? This really is the stupidest thing you've ever said to me, and since I don't really like you, that is saying something."  

[Okimiyage]

Vikteren did not lower his gaze, but kept it steadily upon Nicolae. Somehow, the lack of a reaction was far more unsettling than if he had glanced away when he spoke, ashamed of his--desertion, whispered the traitorous voice in the back of his head.
But Vikteren could not show Nicolae that shame, those emotions. So instead he remained as unmoving as a statue, but for his lips when he spoke, in a low, flat voice--"Antha will have far more pressing issues to concern herself with in the coming weeks, I am certain. And I am more of a complication than she needs right now."
Then he did lower his eyes, and and his lips parted in the inhalation of a breath the vampire did not need. "Do you think this is the first time that I have escaped a hunt? I confess to you that it is not. I am not a fledgling fleeing blind and terror-stricken into the darkness, no matter what you seem to believe. I will lose myself somewhere--in the wilds, or the populous cities--and if you do not confess to Antha my intentions, Nicolae, I will have the time, while Osiris City is searched, to vanish utterly."
He looked up, suddenly, cocking an eye at Nicolae. "She only has a short while to live, Nicolae. Would you not rather spend that time with her, as things used to be between you? I am certain--you have often wished that I had not come here, nor attracted your sister's attentions."
Picking his way through rubble, Vikteren began walking down the aisle, towards the wreckage of the church doors. There, he set them aright, twisting the thick metal hinges into place without effort. "No matter your wishes, or Antha's...it is not wise for me remain. My sire, and whatever of his pawns accompany him, must be led away from here." With a thunderous rumble, the great doors were pulled shut by the golden lion-headed rings upon their interior. "It has very rarely ended well for any persons who involve themselves with him." Vikteren supposed that made him somewhat like Antha in more than a few respects.  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

Nicolae listened silently while Vikteren spoke, his expression blank in the manner exclusive to a vampire. And then, when all was quiet and he was certain the other vampire had finished, his laughter began to boom through the room, echoing off of the high ceiling. "You think I'm not going to tell her immediately? Are you <******** crazy?" Within the blink of an eye he stood before Vikteren, and though there was a certain insane humor to his features his eyes showed a very lucid seriousness that was incredulous, disbelieving. "She would kill me. Do you even know my sister? Do you not realize what a wrathful phoenix of a witch she will become if you vanish? Here, let me tell you exactly what will ******** happen. She'll panic first, for a second or two, and then she will go livid and she will tear this goddamn city apart. When she doesn't find you, two things are going to happen simultaneously. First, she's going to send all the most powerful people in the city to comb the world looking for you under threat of death and they'll never be able to come home, because that would mean facing her wrath. At the same time, anyone who knew you were going to leave or saw you leave is going to suffer horribly. In all of this anger and panic, she'll probably miscarry---yet again---which will ******** the entire family up and destroy her. Then, some big, scary monster is going to show up and kill her miserably and that will have been the last months of her life."
Again that laughter, which steadily grew more sour, more manic, until he was on the floor gripping his head in his hands, his long legs splayed out on the ground. "You are such an idiot!" he yelled, and even to himself he sounded eerily like Antha as he said it, "Either that or the world's biggest jackass. You could upstage Jack and Courtland together with a stunt like this. If you're seriously going to run away like a coward, at least go ******** explain it to her so that she can hate you properly and save us all the goddamn trouble."  

[Okimiyage]

"No, as a matter of fact, I don't know your sister." he snarled. "There are so many sides to her that loving her is like trying to love a kaleidoscope. Because one second she's just a girl--a girl not a fraction of my age, who has shed and been responsible for the shedding of more blood than most soldiers ever will--and the next moment she is a wrathful phoenix of a witch, as you say, Nicolae, and her very lineage--she herself is a walking reminder that witches were once accused of making pacts with devils." The expressionless mask had finally shattered; Vikteren's hands, which had curled into fists at the first syllable of his response, fell open. His shoulders were shaking, but the vampire did not make a sound. Silently, he raised his hands to his face under the pretense of pushing fallen strands of hair away from his face--and if he covered his face for a minute longer than necessary, well...
Finally, his hands fell open, and away, and Vikteren could bear to meet Nicolae's eyes. He went slowly to the third coven-master of Osiris City, and held out his hand. "I'll go to her," he said shortly. And then, quietly, in a whisper that echoed about the sanctuary chamber with a strange, rough half-echo. "Perhaps you are right about me. I may very well be a fool, but I am determined in this. I will not bring that which pursues me to Antha's doorstep; I will not make her more enemies. She bears too many burdens already." Reaching out, he clasped Nicolae's hand, and pulled him to his feet.  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

Nicolae shook off the other vampire's hand, rising angrily to his feet in a single quiet, fluid motion. "You are a royal jackass," he muttered, staring him intensely in the eye as if gazing hard enough into those green depths would let him crawl into his brain, "You show up and make all these problems that we have to deal with and after Antha decides they're worth dealing with to keep you around, you decide to bail." He laughed briefly, without humor, and turned his back on Vikteren to walk away, giving an angry, dismissive wave of his hand in the air above him. It was only when he had almost left that he stopped, turning his head and glaring at him. "You try to act like you're not a monster, that you didn't succumb to the affliction of evil intent that so many of our kind are possessed by, but you really are. So go on, tell her. I hope she throws you in the airship and you never see the outside world again. And if she doesn't, if she lets you run away, I'll have your head on a platter one day after she's gone. That is a promise."
These word, this great anger born by his intentions, was surprisingly not entirely for Antha's sake. It wasn't that Nicolae had grown to like Vikteren---he hated him as much as ever---it was simply that old wound that abandonment had torn open and had never quite sealed up. He had been old enough to remember when his mother had placed himself and his brother in their father's arms and then left with no intentions of returning. Malakai, being a much sweeter, gentler creature, had found it somewhere in his heart to forgive her and move on. Nicolae, on the other hand, had always clutched that resentment near and dear to his heart. To have anyone simply leave, friend or foe, brought up those old bitter memories, the rage and hysteria, and there was nothing to do with it but let it out.  

[Okimiyage]

The air around them went thick with a deadly silence. It was so quiet that one could have heard a hair from the tail of a mouse drop.
Vikteren threw up his hands. He was sick of being civil when there seemed to be no intention of returning the favor. "Do you think I want this? It has been decades, longer than you have existed on this earth, since I have spent more than a single night in the same city. I had hoped--idiotically, yes?--that I had been forgotten, after nearly three hundred years. I did not intend to bring this trouble to your doorstep, but now that it is here, the least I am capable of doing is taking it away with me before--" He grimaced, and clenched his teeth to stop up the flood of angry words. It took the vampire a moment to recover his composure. "I cannot ask Antha to face what I would not myself stand against," he said, quietly. "For nearly a hundred futile years, I lived and killed and would have died at my sire's behest. I was--little more than a mad dog; I belonged to him in the most abject and contemptible sense of the word." He glanced up; his eyes returned from whatever distant memory they had briefly stared into. Nicolae was more correct than he knew. Vikteren was a monster, and he was well aware of the fact. Meeting Nicolae's eyes once again, bright with fury, he said sharply. "I will not return to that. And I will not let the man who was responsible poison this city as he did me."
Vikteren turned on his heel, and began for the doors of the abbey. He did not look back.  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

Nicolae spread his hand briefly across his face, letting his hair fall across it, and then swept the hand up, through his hair and back. Like a magic trick, angry and then haughty, smirking. "What a pathetic life," he leered, shaking his head, "Running, running, running, because you aren't man enough to face him and be free of him either in victory or in death."
That short laugh came again, echoing around Nicolae like a shroud, before suddenly the boy was at the other vampire's shoulder again, whispering, "I've changed my mind, you're not worth my small courtesies. Not even for Antha's sake." The grin touched his lips briefly, maliciously wicked, as the light as air words left his lips, "I've already told her you're running away without saying anything. Good luck---you'll need it." And then he was gone like a phantom, an apparition, back to his new crypt where his new followers were thinning out the remnants of Sleet's old coven and then scrubbing their blood from the walls and floor.  

[Okimiyage]

The trees sped by Vikteren's 'shortcut' in a flurry of foliage. All the while, it felt as though they walked very slowly but simultaneously at great speed, and though fingers raked out of the darkness on either side, clutching at them, Vikteren held Antha very closely to him, and effortlessly nudged their path into just the right angles to narrowly avoid the gauntlet of claws.
Then, they came to a thick miasma. Vikteren's footsteps slowed on the path, and around them, the darkness faded, dim color returned to their environment, and the moving forest flickered and stuttered to a halt.
The vampire's eyes narrowed into slits of snake-green, and he turned to her slowly. Behind them both could be heard the cracking twigs of their pursuit, snarls in the distance. Vikteren bent his head towards Antha's, speaking rapidly but in a low and measured tone. "I would advise you to take a deep breath," he said. In the days when Vikteren had been a member of Cyrus's legion, this had been a favored tactic when the time came to storm castles and penetrate fortresses of human domain. Cyrus would send, ahead of his coven, a poisonous smog with which to incapacitate the human guards at their posts before they ever saw combat. Vampires, breathless, moved freely through the battleground while human armies choked to death on their own screams, their lungs filled with acid. "It is certain that Cyrus will desire a one-on-one confrontation; it is his intent now to force you to turn back." Or to destroy her and her children in an entirely off-handed manner; Vikteren's sire was never one to treasure human life. Through the tree-limbs ahead, the chapel's crumbling turrets could distantly be seen. They were close enough that the vampire could nearly taste Cyrus's repulsive odor upon his palette. "If we are fortunate," he began grimly, "this is but a moat of sorts, and the air inside the chapel--or that of its lower levels--may still be clean." It was a slim possibility. He did not want to tell her how unlikely it was that Cyrus would overlook this. Vikteren thought rapidly. Their other options--what could he offer? That he lure Cyrus to her, in the woods where neither party had an advantage, that he send her into the space-inbetween to follow alone, that he carry air inside his own unused lungs to sustain her while they sought Cyrus--the ideas flashed within his mind's eye, then were abruptly dismissed. This expedition itself was one step removed from a suicide mission. Antha knew that, and had come despite the danger. To expect her to turn away now was half an insult--but Vikteren could not stop himself from voicing his concern. Antha carried two lives besides her own. If the poison fog should in some way cause adverse effects upon the growth and development of her twins...it would be unforgivable. "If we are not lucky..." Vikteren drifted off. "It doesn't bear to think on. I would be willing to scout ahead, if we could--"
Suddenly, Vikteren wheeled about in the direction of the chapel once again. He thought he'd been mistaken at first, but--there it was again! Softly at first, but growing with force, the chapel's bells had began to chime. Someone was ringing out the hour from the tower above. It was almost certainly a signal for his sire's forces to gather at the chapel--Vikteren had perhaps a few moments to spare at best. There was no time to find a safe place for Antha to wait while he checked out the chapel's interior; they either had to attempt to keep ahead of their pursuit and hope for the best, or send Antha back while they had the chance. "They're coming," Vikteren announced, tersely. "Cyrus is expecting us."  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

"Oh, I do hope he doesn't think so little of me. If all of this anticipation, all of this build up, was for underestimations such as this..." Antha laughed once, darkly, that dangerous glimmer sparking in her eyes as she whispered in a low purr, "Do not disappoint me, Cyrus. Sleet was a worthier adversary, with the way you're handling things."
Around the girl, the earth gave a brief, fine trembling, the leaves of the nearby trees rustling ecstatically before the first gust came. It was not a particularly fast wind, as in nature it ought to have been, but the gale was powerful enough to bend the trees as it passed by, a few of the weaker ones snapping beneath it's force. A finer illustration came then of how unusual the wind really was when it reached the vampire and the witch girl, curling around their figures just close enough to rustle their clothes, stirring Antha's scarlet curls, and then when it reached the crumbling building for rather than slamming into it as it should have, it redirected some inch away from the time-stained stones, flowing instead quite easily through any opening that was nearest and passing then through the structure.
"Shall we, then? I can't really say I'm fond of the conditions out here, and as you said, they're coming, and I don't particularly feel like dealing with minions just now. Besides---" Her eyes twirled first to the right and then the left, finally glancing over her shoulder before she murmured, "Khayman is coming with his coven, and Julianne with her wolves. We'll let them have the fodder."
In the next moment Antha was heading for the door, taking careful note of her steps on the treacherous ground, and at her back there was that shimmering, incandescent figure that swirled around the girl like an aura, that brought with it that smothering swell of power which brought from Antha a responding power. "Ugh, this place was not meant for human habitation," she murmured, standing just outside the door and peeking in as if there was no real rush, no threat, "Poisonous smog and other traps aside. You are a terribly ungracious host, Cyrus." The last was said a little louder, called throughout the echoing halls, and was punctuated with laughter, as if her own joke had amused her. "Ah, whatever. Let's get on with it."  

[Okimiyage]

Upon Antha’s taunt, a distant susurrus was to be heard. They had entered into a small, high-ceilinged antechamber; through a blue stained-glass window, in the moonlight, motes of dust swung about one another in a complex spiraling waltz. With the distant sound, something moved through those beams of dim light, sending the complex patterns of settling dust wildly awry and jostling the tall decorative candelabra that framed the abbey’s doors. The abbey was not warm to begin with, but whatever this presence was, it had caused the temperature to drop by at least ten degrees. If Vikteren had the need for breath, his would have frosted in the air. Typical, he thought. Theatrics.

Aloud, he said: "Think of this like a test." Cyrus was toying with Antha, sending out gentle probes in order to gauge the extent of her capabilities. It was a method that had favored him in the past. Cyrus prided himself on his endurance. He played games that lasted for decades, if not centuries. He thought of humans as flighty, lacking in mettle and attention span.

If nothing else, Vikteren was anticipating the pleasure of witnessing his sire’s expectations disappointed.

Through the archway, he could see a pile of splintered wooden benches. Many had been broken, some in several pieces—one bench-end dangled from a rafter overhead by the edge of its carved wooden leg. And there was a smell—something like rotting meat, and Vikteren could tell it was neither human nor animal flesh. Over it all, like the heart-note of some foul perfume, there was a pervasively sweet odor, almost sickening in its saccharinity. On the other side of the room, the vampire could see—just barely, though a barricade of broken wood—the tip of the arched door which led further into the abbey, to what had once been domestic quarters and courtyards and even oubliettes where sacred philosophers had once sought solace. Throughout all was scattered piles of blackened charcoal and ash, the remnants of many scattered fires.

Looking at that door, the world went slow for Vikteren. A rabbit’s heart thrummed inside his ribcage, where no such beat had stirred for centuries—in his ear, the dark and molasses-sweet murmur, Yesssss…

Vikteren did not have time for hesitation. He knew where they had to go without even thinking about it. He could hear Cyrus’s small legion closing in around the abbey—most of them fledglings, and too stupid or hurried to hush their steps as they stormed through the forest. They did not have time to sit and ponder what trap lay inside this room. The vampire surged forward, failing to notice the small, almost imperceptibly narrow line of salt that was laid out across the threshold, placed with atomic precision to form a perfectly straight, pencil-thin barrier across the stone tile.
His step left the salt in disarray that the chilling wind before had not been capable of accomplishing. Vikteren was halfway across the chapel before he realized that something was amiss.

The chapel’s guardian announced itself with a piercing scream, something worthy of an ancestral banshee, and flung itself—herself?—down from the rafters. Vikteren barely had time to look up before the creature was on him. It was roughly humanoid in shape, the same size as a full-grown man, but equipped with lethal-looking, blackened talons, and a mane of black hair. It was difficult to tell whether its mottled grey skin was a result of natural discoloration or whether the creature had chosen to paint itself from the ashes scattered about the room. Its face was narrow, alien—the eyes sunken and hollow, framed by a matted black mane which stretched halfway down the creature’s back.
When it landed on him, it sank filthy claws into his back and dragged, with a sound of crowing triumph which sounded like a cross between laughter and its initial shriek. Vikteren denied the scream that strangled and died in his throat, and with a spasm of ferocious effort threw the creature off his back. It hit the wall hard and fast, with a crack of bone shattering.
For a moment, it did not move. Vikteren grimaced in pain, felt the ribbons of his shirt against his spine, and—less urgently, now—began to move towards the barricade. He had not quite gotten there yet when his opponent gave out a low, crooning moan. For a moment, it nearly sounded like the call of a bird.

Vikteren turned around just in time to see the thing stand up with blood streaming down one side of its face. ‘Shattered’ was not enough to describe the impact that wall had made on the creature’s skull. Nothing should have been able to move after that, and yet move it did—and furthermore, it was beginning to smoulder. Vikteren’s eyes narrowed, made vile green with wrath. Pheonix, he thought, loud enough for Antha to catch. It had to be. Never once in centuries had Vikteren encountered such a creature, but he had been around long enough to hear the stories. They could best be described as a particularly bizarre order of liches. Little tongues of flame were beginning to lick around the points of the talons; warily, Vikteren began backing up to the barricade, groping for a long slab of wood behind him. He didn’t want this thing coming anywhere within arm’s length of either Antha or himself.