Chapter 40

CHAPTER FORTY

T he collision of magic and blades echoed ferociously throughout the chamber, our fight with the Vampires a chaos of brutal attacks and desperate defence.

I'd never been on the back foot in a fight like this, never found myself scrambling for cover and relying on shields instead of attacking.

I threw my power at a blur of motion who was racing towards me, an explosion of air magic hitting the Vampire hard enough to send him crashing into the far wall, a cascade of grit tumbling down where he fell. But he was up and shooting back into the fight before I could make any attempt at advancing.

I'd given up fighting with my blades, all of my focus on the weight of my magic which I was forced to replenish as quickly as I was using it, my gifts locked onto the Vampires, their desire for blood and love of the hunt fuelling me continuously.

But as I replenished myself with their power, my gifts only stoked the flames of those desires, making their hunger increase, their attacks growing more reckless, more volatile, more deadly.

Cayde cursed as the one who I had assumed to be the leader with the curls which hung to his jaw took him to the ground, fangs snapping at his throat. He swung a heavy punch into the Vampire's jaw, knocking him off again before his teeth could make contact and rage poured through me.

I blasted magic at them, hurling the Vampire away before Dalia's scream of pain had me whipping around once more.

Terror sped through me as I found her pinned to the ground with two Vampires feasting on her blood, their teeth deep in either side of her throat as they drank and her thrashing limbs lost momentum.

"Moraine!" I cried as I sprinted for our sister, another of the Vampires racing to take me on.

Moraine shifted into her Harpy Order form, revealing her silver wings and launching herself into the air, out of reach of the monstrous beasts. She wrapped me in a fist of her air magic as the Vampire shot for me, whipping me towards the cavern roof and hurling me towards Dalia with a cry of effort.

I took control of my descent, blasting the Vampires off of my friend and dropping down before her as she scrambled to sit up, clutching at her bleeding throat.

"Fisherman!" I bellowed, naming one of the attack formations the three of us had been perfecting during our hours of battle training and I met Moraine's gaze across the room as she nodded in confirmation.

Cayde still wrestled with the lead Vampire, the two of them locked in a fit of furious blows and my pulse thundered with the need to get to him, but I focused on the plan first, trusting him to hold his own until I could get there.

I threw my fist out, blasting a wall of air magic into existence behind the three Vampires who had rushed to join with one another in the centre of the chamber before using a whip of power to claim a measure of that glittering grit from the urn behind them.

Moraine's magic met with mine from the other side and the two of us threw our power into the Vampires. We caught them in our net, hurling them towards an archway marked for earth just as I dropped the measure of grit I had collected into the depression at its base and opened it.

The three of them were thrown through the archway into the unknown, our combined power blasting at the wall of glimmering light until it faded away, leaving them on the far side of it and reducing our enemies to two.

I broke into a run, my eyes on Cayde whose fight with the Vampire was turning more brutal, the beastly leader of the coven fighting with such force and speed that I could hear bones crunching from the impact of his blows.

Panic threatened to envelop me and I didn't think twice before hurling myself at the pair of them, colliding with the Vampire and knocking him off of the man I had claimed for my own.

A flash of light caught my attention from across the cavern but I couldn't spare any attention to look for it.

We rolled across the hard floor, my head hitting the stone of an archway so hard that for a moment only darkness called to me.

And a moment was all the leader of the Vampires needed.

My curse of fury ripped through the air as he tore into my throat, his venom immobilising my hold over my magic as he began to drink furiously, a sickening sucking sensation overtaking me as he drew my power out of my body and into his own.

I scrambled for a weapon, my hands clawing at his back and finding the hilt of a battle axe he had strapped there.

I fought beneath his weight, tugging at the axe as the sound of the others fighting the final Vampire in their desperation to get to me filled my ears.

The world flickered around me as every drop of magic was torn from my limbs, the blood loss making my vision darken as the feral desire for blood consumed the beast on top of me.

He wasn't going to stop. My magic hadn't been enough to sate him. His vicious desires would only climax in my death.

I tugged the axe free of its sheath but it was too heavy in my leaden arms, falling with a clang to the stone beside us as my boots kicked feebly at the flagstones.

Death was a sweet caress against my cheeks, the Ferryman drawing closer, ready to guide me beyond The Veil, the echo of his paddle dipping into the waters of ruin echoing in my ears…