10. Kill

10

KILL

T he view from the towering walls of Novakitsk is terrible beneath the moonlight. We’ve somehow been magically dressed in the city’s warm silk and fur garments as we were portaled here by Ilyov’s winds; as I gaze down upon a vast force now, swarming across the moonlit plane of ice below, I feel my heart grip, along with Lucca’s.

Quinn’s burns, however, as he stares down at a terrible force of Vampires, thousands strong, sent by the Council to kill him. Seething waves of violet-black magic crest up now from dozens of high level Masters in that horde.

As they approach Novakitsk’s walls—ready for battle.

Ornate black helms, breastplates, gauntlets, and long black Vampire spears glint beneath the moonlight. I understand from Quinn this is no rag-tag bunch of Vampires summoned here by the Council; this is their Societas Sanguinis , their Blood Company, or part of it, sent to collect him.

These are the Council’s most elite warriors, who bring down those who are a direct threat to the Council, or who have actively rebelled from it. Quinn has done both now, by raising the Music before them and delivering true death to a handful of their members as our trio’s Light went haywire in their presence. The Council has come to punish him now, as they send their most notorious forces to collect him.

Even as they support someone else in annexing the Red Letter Hotel Florence—the place Quinn holds most dear.

I feel Master Vasily Ilyov’s immense wave of power flood the night now, as that force approaches Novakitsk’s high walls. As he draws a deep breath, he raises a blindingly white spear of pure, beautiful ice written throughout with sigils, holding it out before him in the night.

I know it’s one of his blessed, arcane icicles, like he allowed Lucca and me to use earlier. But rather than a wand, this is a weapon, barbed all down its length with terrible protrusions and a long, keen blade as it flares all along its shaft and blade with an incredible, pure white light.

As Master Ilyov writes blazing white sigils through the air now in an ornate script I barely recognize, I understand it’s Ascendant sigildry he’s using. The Music blares through my ears and body from Ilyov now, ringing with a deafening tone like a war-gong. I hear a thousand clarion horns in it, and battle drums. I clap my hands to my ears, fighting to not scream as that sound inundates me, Lucca the same beside me.

Quinn weathers that massive sound better as a hammering like thunder makes me feel like my body is being pummeled apart. As Ilyov finishes his sigil, I feel an indomitable roar blast through my entire body and mind, to protect , hold, and repel .

As Ilyov thrusts his spear into the center of that insanely complex sigil now, I feel his blazing power thunder out to every massive ice-giant on the citadel’s walls. His power goes to the enormous dragon wights that protect the battlements, also, and to a terrible horde of darker things that live somewhere beneath the plain’s vast ice.

To kill , along with everything else.

As Dark Fae warriors flood the walls now, armed with icicle spears and doing incredible feats of magic as they write Dark Fae sigils in the air, the ice giants upon the walls and the dragon wights come alive. Ilyov’s terrible creations launch down to wage war upon the approaching force, as I see darker things punch up from beneath the ice, all around and through the Council’s forces.

I recall the German Master Gunter Spielmann of Bavaria talking about Master Ilyov’s feared ice hordes now. Those hordes included not only giants made of ice and the dragon wights, but also masses of undead, summoned from their wintery graves to do Ilyov’s bidding.

I feel those forces rise now as they punch through the ice at Master Ilyov’s sigil. That undead horde surrounds the Council’s force, with chaos taking their center as more rise within their ranks. It’s then I understand the true might of what Ilyov wields here.

That the Council may not be prepared for, as a terrible, battle-hard smile takes Ilyov.

“My daughter and I must focus now to move our forces into battle,” Ilyov says as he glances at Quinn. Clariss and Curio both stand beside him in the night, though I missed their arrival. “If you wish to go to Florence, Quinn, I can get you out, but I must do it before I seal the citadel. If you go, you may not be able to return here to finish your recovery, nor your trio’s work with me to deepen your understanding of the Music and the true Ascendant sigils you are only just beginning to create. Novakitsk is strong, but I sense several excellent Vampire Masters in the forces before us; we may be under siege a while, though my citadel is prepared for it. Will you support your forces in Florence, Quinn? Or would you stay and finish your training here… and potentially lose your Dark Haven to do it?”

“I must go,” Quinn answers without a beat as he glances at Ilyov, his eyes filled with dark fire in the night. “You know where my heart lies. I must return to defend those I am responsible for… just as you defend those you are responsible for here.”

“I understand.” Vasily Ilyov’s nod to Quinn is deep, but brief. “Make yourselves ready; I can put you through any place there is strong Dark Fae energy—and there is plenty of it inside the Red Letter Hotel Florence, since you have Made so many unwitting Dark Fae there over the centuries, Quindici DaPonti. But that is a discussion for another time. For now, know that there is another Dark Fae stronghold, a secret sect that lives in Venice, right beneath the noses of the Vampire Council and the Summer Fae. Go there to finish your training; Curio knows the way. I shall send him with you, to battle for the Hotel and make sure you get to Venice, to finish what you started here. If the fates allow.”

I don’t even have a moment to thank Master Ilyov for everything he’s done for us when he waves a hand. As we’re consumed by his whirling winds of ice and snow, we’re thrust through one of his wintery portals once more.

It’s deeply unpleasant as I feel us head towards our destination. But then something is wrenched; it makes me scream as everything inside me feels torn to pieces, shredded by an immense change in the portal.

Master Ilyov has changed course with our destination. We don’t arrive inside the Red Letter Hotel Florence, as his portal suddenly dumps Quinn, Lucca, myself, and Curio out upon an ornately carved stone floor. We’re beneath the Hotel, as I see the ornate stone tomb of the unknown Vampire that Devi and I once traversed through.

As I come back from that horrible wrenching sensation, frozen to my bones from Ilyov’s terrible winds, Lucca helps me up from the stones. Curio helps up Quinn, as I see three dozen Vampires in various stages of healing all around me through my chill fugue.

“Quinn!”

The statuesque Vampiress Devina Scarlotti’s brisk alto voice cuts like a blade of pure joy as she rushes forward, gripping Quinn in a bone-cracking hug. Dressed not in her usual little black dress and wicked stilettos, Devi wears an all-black tactical outfit tonight with combat boots as she kisses Quinn hard on the lips, then embraces me next, Lucca last.

“Lucca! Thank the gods. I’m glad you’re here.” I’m surprised to see Alleno Massi among Quinn’s fighters, hiding in the underground tomb as they recuperate. Most have dire wounds; as Alleno moves forward, clasping forearms with Lucca now, he draws Lucca in for a hard embrace with a huff of relief. Alleno is Lucca’s cousin and technically Lucca’s Summer Fae Darkwatch protector.

Though Quinn, Lucca, and I all learned recently that Alleno is Dark Fae like us, as is Devi.

“We came too late, I see,” Quinn says as he nods around now, taking in the carnage. Most of his former Dark Haven Vampires are still on their feet, though a few have gone into a deep repose like a trance. Those are the most injured, and lay like the dead with arms crossed over their chests, recuperating from terrible wounds of magic still festering upon them.

Though the conscious Vampires all salute Quinn with a hand to their hearts, some going down on one knee so he can reach out and touch their heads briefly, there is one person who does not approach. Healing the most severely wounded with his watery, dark-light power, the Vampire-Siren Arturos Morregain only glances at us as his hands hover over an unconscious Vampire.

Quinn does not mention Arturos’ terrible betrayal of us to the Gold Eyes, nor does anyone else, as he holds Arturos’ dark blue eyes with his onyx ones—alive with a terrible fire now in the night. Though Arturos does not break eye contact, his pale cheeks redden. I feel the deep regret that moves through every part of his watery aura as he faces Quinn, and everything he did that led to all this mess.

But Quinn says nothing. At last, Arturos turns his face away.

Back to his work as a vast silence stretches between them, like graves.

“The Hotel has been taken, Quinn,” Devi says with a terrible wrath now as her blood-dark aura surges around her, scarlet like her Scarlet Fae origins but black and terrible in its knife-like fury. “The Council sent a significant number of their Societas Sanguinis in against us, in addition to a number of Council Masters who came to make sure we fell. I felt a brief missive from Pisa that they have been taken as well, before their minds were cut off from ours. Both Dark Havens have fallen this night. What you see here is everyone we have left. All the others were captured by the Council’s formidable mind-snares. I fear they have been broken to the Council’s will, being turned over as we speak to another Master to Kiss this entire Dark Haven and make it theirs. Though I do not know who that Master is.”

“It could be anyone on the Council,” Quinn says now as he gazes around the last of his fighters. “I’m sure they all hate me now, after we killed a few of them with that disastrous demonstration. Any of them would be glad to take this Dark Haven over. And twist the knife in my gut… to make it sting just that much deeper as I fall.”

“That will not happen.” Lucca’s gaze is intense now as he peruses the people who are left.

And I see a sudden light come into my Cuorante Dark Fae’s blue eyes.

“Devi. How many of these Vampires are actually Dark Fae that Quinn’s Made?” Lucca turns to Devina, glancing between her and Alleno, who has stepped to her side. I remember that Devina and Alleno have been secret lovers for gods-know-how-long, though they don’t cuddle each other but stand solid beside each other like warriors.

“All of them.” Devi turns to Quinn. “Congratulations, Quinn. You have an army of Dark Fae at your command. We need to regain our bonds to you, so you can wield us once more, but there you have it. You’ve been Making Dark Fae for centuries from the Summer Fae and other Fae you willingly turned over the years. None of us became Vampires. We’ve just been hiding it really, really well, as we discovered what we are.”

“All Mentale Dark Fae.” Quinn breathes with a glimmer of hope now as he glances around our group. I see how there are only about thirty fighters here, however, holed up in Florence’s underground. If Quinn had been Making Dark Fae from Fae Lineages he brought into his Dark Haven all along, there should be dozens more. I understand that with him, as I feel his hope flicker.

As it gutters, threatening to go out.

“Were the rest of the Dark Fae captured?” He pins Devi with his gaze once more .

“No. We got them out,” she says with a wicked twist to her lips now, as she nods with subtle cunning at Alleno.

“Those Dark Fae who weren’t fighters, who were Courtiers and Courtesans, or in other staff positions at the Hotel, we got out through the Underground early, before the attack,” Alleno says, nodding at the far wall of the tomb where a hidden staircase ascends by magic to the Fae cemetery above. “We got them to Bello Bellissimo, our Dark Fae trafficker; he got everyone across Realms to the human world, to our Dark Fae safe house on the other side of Florence. Some six dozen Dark Fae, in all. Though your Vampires were all captured in the fight. None would flee early, even those who were weak fighters. Something about true Night in their veins, I suppose.”

“Vampires never shy from death. It’s in their nature,” Quinn says, as I feel a deep knowledge of why the Vampires didn’t run move through him. Rousing himself, he heaves a hard sigh, as both relief and wrath take him. At least the Dark Fae were spared being turned over to whatever Council Master Vampire will rule Florence’s Dark Haven next.

Though the Vampires were not.

“We abandon no one.” Dark fire blazes in Quinn’s eyes, gazing around our group with determination and rage. “No Vampire or Dark Fae who has ever been Sired, Made, or Kissed by me shall ever be abandoned to the torment of another Master, not while breath remains in my lungs and blood beats in my heart. We will get everyone back. Even if I die trying, I swear it.”

I know Quinn is as good as his oath, as everyone in our circle silently nods. As Lucca grips my hand, I feel a sweet balm flow into me from his blazing, righteous heart. He’s just as determined to see things through with all of this, even though it’s not his battle.

Because Quinn is a part of us, a part of the very fiber of Lucca’s and my being as we both firm our resolve now—to join Quinn in getting his entire Dark Haven back, or die with him. The Dark Haven of Florence and the Hotel that goes with it are the epicenter of Quinn’s heart .

And I fear he may be truly lost to us, if we lose this place and all the people in it.

But even as we firm our resolve to fight whoever has taken Florence’s Dark Haven, a terrible sound rings through the underground like a cacophonous bell. That sound isn’t the Music, but it’s deafening, as all of us clap our hands to our ears, except Quinn, who weathers it.

I have a brief understanding from him that this is some kind of magical warning system he put in place throughout the underground in case of an emergency long ago. And then a voice is flooding through that terrible sound.

A smooth, laughing tenor voice that chills me—to my very bones.

“To my most beloved and dearly deviant Quindici,” the Master of Monaco, Florian Delano’s voice is smooth like butter over honey as he addresses Quinn. As it drips with sarcasm and disdain, I don’t miss the condescending and sexual way Quinn’s nemesis on the Council of Rome has addressed him.

As he uses Quinn’s own magical warning system now, to deliver Quinn a message.

“Tonight, I have taken over management of your Dark Haven of Florence.” Florian’s unctuous voice continues, as I practically see his gloating smile at his announcement. “I know you’re here, somewhere. Though your wards on the underground in Florence prevent us from tracing you right now, it is only a matter of time before my people and all the vast resources the Council have given us to annex your Dark Haven break them. Your wards will fall; the last of your fighters will be discovered. I will take Florence completely, and then I shall make your people suffer. You know the flavor of my suffering, Quinn; indeed, you endured it countless times over the centuries at Emiliana’s behest, to continue her alliance with the Dark Haven of Monaco. For every day that passes, another one of your Vampires will be acquired, to face the same suffering as you once did at my hands. I will take pleasure in ruining them all, until you give yourself up. For that is what you will do, Quinn, before any of your people come to true death from the devious pleasure I can create in them. And they will come to me, again and again, because of my power, as you did of old. You have seven days until I extinguish the first batch. Then seven more until I kill off the second, and so forth. Au revoir. ”

As the cacophonous sound shuts off with a snap, I’m left with a deafening ring in my ears. Even that cannot mask Quinn’s furious snarl, as he raises his power in a hurricane of dark fire around us.

His eyes flicker deathly red to his Revenant state.

As the fae blaze in them dies.