Chapter 6

CHAPTER

SIX

I may have fucked up.

My attempt to get a message to Zane through the void tear wasn't my best idea, but it wasn't the worst by far. Did it knock on the door to otherworldly evils and invite them in?

Sure.

Was it likely going to kill me?

Maybe.

Peeking into the void and trying to pass a note was at least romantic.

After I whispered into the void, I got an answer back.

The tear pulsed like an angry wound, the gash crawling up and out like a spiderweb of darkness. Cold, unforgiving death magic frosted the air, freezing my breath into plumes of black fog as I scrambled backwards. Everything living near the void that wasn't able to crawl away withered into dust, weeds fell in on themselves and little ants evaporated into smoke. The sand in the plastic turtle sizzled and blackened into glass and splintered out in awful directions.

The terrible pull of the void was too uncomfortable to ignore, and terrified occupants had started leaning out of windows and doors to see what the hell was happening.

"What is that?" a human dad demanded from the "wipe your paws" door, a little girl peeking out from behind his leg.

"Inside! All of you inside!" I screamed. "It's death magic!"

"I believe I was to tell you when I changed my mind about my concern levels," Sias hissed through his teeth, the fear in his voice snapping my attention back to the tear. "I've officially changed my mind. I'm very concerned."

I saw the form stepping through, a humanoid shape made of black smoke, dipping down to duck through the widening tear marring the surroundings.

My heart stopped.

For a few, fleeting, beautiful moments, I felt like I was floating in a daydream come true.

Red eyes opened, glowing orbs of blood magic, aiming right at me.

"Zane?" I pleaded, desperate.

"Darling, that's not Zane," Sias answered in a rush, curling his fist into my jacket to yank me back into place beside him.

I wasn't ready to believe him. I was ready to run headfirst into that smoky body and hug him with everything I had.

Imagine my heartbreak when another set of red eyes opened below the first pair.

Then another.

And another.

They floated and rearranged as the body expanded, its back splintering into spider legs with webbing between them. What had been human-like hands sharpened into brutal claws, solidifying into obsidian razers. The thing straightened its spine and opened its mouth, which ran the length of its torso with endless teeth and hunger.

It wasn't Zane. It was something I'd never seen before—a void creature unlike any vampire I'd ever faced.

And worse yet—yeah, worse than the vertical mouth, spider wings and too many eyes—was the magic tangled up inside of it.

Death magic was a given, the cold, ever present aura of the void haloed around it like a living nightmare. It was the crippling fear magic swirling with the luring charm attraction that threw me for a fucking loop.

Beyond the halo of black magic surrounding the creature, thin threads of glittering malice draped out and attached themselves to the occupants standing outside, almost invisible but just present enough to catch the shine of fear in their eyes.

"This is bad," I breathed in a rush, my magic blocker struggling against the complicated tapestry of conflicting magic pouring off the damn thing.

"It's manifesting heart strings," Sias growled, slipping his jacket off and tossing it over the kid's bike for safe keeping. We were right in the middle of a crisis, but I was momentarily distracted by how he rolled up his sleeves. "That's charm magic, Dallas. Physical embodiment of charm magic corrupted with fear."

"This is real bad," I corrected.

I hadn't even seen the little girl running toward the creature, pulled in by the charm magic like flies to a spider.

Sias scooped her up and caught her father as he tried meandering past, giving the man a quick, sobering slap to break the spell. I saw the thread melt away the moment he snapped back to reality.

"Get inside," Sias told him, passing the daughter over. "Now. Don't look back."

I saw others either buckling from the weight of their fear, or drifting over to offer themselves up for slaughter. The creature spread its leathery, webbed wings and howled into the night, a horrible, ear-splitting sound that made my knees weak for a heartbeat.

My neck scars itched.

The teeth in the creature's belly brought back horrible memories of the dark, of blood, of pain and agony.

It was a vampire. It was twisted and mutated into a new form, but a vampire nonetheless.

And I was a pro at killing those fuckers.

"Run interference with the locals," I yelled back at Sias, pulling out the sword I had strapped to my back under Zane's jacket. "Keep them away from it!"

Sias was already in motion, grabbing people and ripping them away from the vampire as they tried to crawl their way toward it. The magic essence in my pocket shone with brilliant light as I ran it over the blade of my sword, blessing it with the power to do some real damage to the undead.

I ignored the sting I felt from my pathetic necromancy powers trying to grow from my practice sessions with Funus, the darkness in me so fragile and benign that I was likely going to have to start all the way back over after handling this much life magic.

I didn't care.

I couldn't let this thing live, even if it meant setting my chances of seeing Zane again back a few months. This was my fault, and I was prepared to pay the price.

The vampire was eager to gobble up its prey, and was very frustrated when an incubus kept getting in its way. It charged, wings flapping to make it airborne for a few feet of movement. I flanked to the side as it drew closer, dodging an outstretched claw to clip one of its clawed, back limbs.

The life enchanted blade cut through it with a smoky hiss, lobbing off a spiked tip. An awful screech ripped from the beast as it turned its attention in my direction, all sets of red eyes on me. Pulses of icy silver rippled through the strings draped over the innocent bystanders, compelling them to draw in closer. A long, dexterous tongue lolled from the thing's vertical mouth, slashing at me with a starving fury, the scales lining it slicing a new hole in Zane's jacket sleeve.

"Easy, fuck face!" I tugged on the sleeve to see the damage, anger lining my vision. "This is borrowed!"

Fuck Face responded by anchoring itself backward on its creepy, spider wing things and opened its nightmare mouth wider, its black heart visible behind its lashing tongue. It reached out one of its clawed hands, wrapping its spindly fingers around a thread and pulled tight, summoning a helpless person too afraid to do much more than scream in terror.

A series of golden bullets pierced through its hand in a tight cluster, the life magic punching through its palm with the same smoky sizzle as my blade. The monster roared and flexed its wounded hand, and Sias kept his ridiculous gun trained on the beast as he shoved a wailing victim behind him.

"Cut the threads!" he commanded me. "Get them loose!"

I guess I couldn't make fun of his stupid gun anymore. It worked great, and he was a surprisingly good shot. The guy could bowl and shoot?

My, my, I was learning a lot about Sias today.

The threads tying the victims to the beast fell away with a few slices of my sword, the spell crippling them broken, but the panic kept a few of them from moving too fast.

I didn't have time to shake them free of their fear because the vampire decided that Sias was his next target. It spun with the agility of a spider, wielding its spiked legs with terrifying precision. Its legs plucked at the ground, shards of concentrated death magic spiking out from each impact as it lapped the air with its scaly tongue.

Sias fired a few more shots at the thing, nailing it across the chest and neck, and even though his enchanted bullets punched deep, they didn't slow it down. It hissed and widened its mouth, bones cracking to shove the ribs from its torso out of the way.

It made a horrible sound, a warbled echo of stolen screams torn from the void, and Sias snarled his lip in challenge. The flare of the vampire's eyes reflected in Sias's horns, soaking them in crimson.

Sias answered the flare with his own, his gaze fire laced fury as he discharged his clip and reloaded.

He wasn't afraid.

He was pissed.

He was going to go out fighting, shooting his stupid, golden gun instead of running for safety.

I swooned a little bit. Just a little.

Like a totally normal amount.

I moved before I could think better of it, throwing myself into a controlled slide between the spider-wing tips to slash my sword upward. The blade connected in the joint of one of its wings, knocking it sideways with the sudden drop of balance.

Sias took the opening and fired a few more rounds into the vampire's side, striking where kidneys would be and causing a howl to rip from the thing.

My maneuver worked great, and was totally badass, but I misjudged how fast it could use its other hand, the one not riddled with bullets.

The collision was brutal and fast, and I was met with the knuckles of a nightmare vampire's backhand before bouncing off the apartment building's wall. My vision splintered in a spiral, ears whining with the effort my brain made trying to stay conscious.

I heard Sias scream before my body was knocked back into the brick, caged in by claws as the vampire loomed over me. My sword clattered to the ground from the impact to my arm, the back of my head screaming in pain as it was knocked back into the building.

A blast of hot rot swallowed me as the creature opened its mouth, tongue slashing out to whip at my head. It caught me on the temple, grinding needle sharp scales across my skin. Blood trailed down my cheek, and I saw the vampire's eyes glow with hunger.

Sias's gunshots bit into the vampire's neck and cheek, life magic ripping away at its form but not doing enough damage to slow it down. The vampire was too focused on murdering me to feel its injuries, which I admit I was flattered by.

It's not every day a spawn of the void takes an interest, am I right, fellas?

Through the impossible number of teeth lining its mouth, I saw the swell of its beating heart tucked into the throat, the endless tongue swallowing down into the depths, and the emptiness beyond.

It was not how I wanted to go. It looked really icky in there.

But with my body pinned, my arm fractured, my head swimming, and no way for me to wiggle free, I was pretty sure it was out of my hands.

I wasn't even going to leave a pretty corpse for Sias to bury.

"Alright, ugly," I sneered at the vampire. "I'm going to give you heartburn from hell."

Its smoky lips peeled back from its teeth, bones shifting and cracking as it opened up wide to take a chomp out of its Dallas flavored snack.

Then hell froze over.

Gunshots rang out from my left, three piercing blows hit the vampire through its eyes causing it to rear back and throw me in pain. It wasn't my finest exit from a situation, the landing was rough, but I was able to scramble away before it could slam its massive claw back down where I had been.

Sias pulled me up from where I had landed, getting me to my feet.

"You saved my ass," I told him, breathless. "I thought I was vampire food for sure."

"I wish I could say that was me." Sias was panting like he had run a marathon. "It was them."

Our foe was flanked by three people in protective gear, firing semi-auto weapons loaded with blessed bullets punching holes through its torso. The Saint's Army logo reflected the streetlights in silver, and I felt my stomach go cold. Born from the necessity of fighting the undead and handling insane necromancers centuries ago, the Saint's Army was made up of exclusively human zealots who worshiped the Goddess's opposite, the Saint of Life. The Saint's Army used to be revered as saviors, swords of light used to banish evil. These days they're made up of misfits and orphans scooped up to serve as vampire fodder by homegrown militia ready to prove something.

"Immobilize it!" Austin was commanding the team, his voice rising over the chaos. "Paris, Worth, get the grounding charms around it now! Get it away from the tear! Beaumont, Haslet, get these civilians out of here!"

"I need to get to the tear," I told Sias quickly. "I need to get this life magic into it to seal it before it gets wider. Do you still have bullets?" I paused while he checked his clip, nodding that he was fine. "Go get more people out. Let them focus on the vampire."

Sias gave me a nod of understanding, but caught me with a clenched fist around Zane's jacket.

"Don't do anything stupid, Dallas," he told me, eyes flaring with emeralds rimmed in fire. "I will be very pissed off if you get yourself killed."

"Aw. You're cute when you're threatening me to stay alive." That wasn't enough to convince him to release me, so I added, "I won't do anything stupid. Promise."

His fingers uncurled. "You lie so easily."

I didn't confirm nor deny that I had been lying. I figured my actions would speak for themselves.

My former family had taken some nice chunks out of the feral vampire, but nothing seemed to be strong enough to take the fucker down completely. Both of its clawed hands were ripped through the middle, yet somehow functioned enough to slash out with purpose. Paris got a nasty graze across her back, her armor coming off in ribbons. Haslet got a slap with the scaly tongue, his leg bloody and torn.

The damn thing was using its body to block the tear, always retreating back after attacking so we couldn't simply toss something damaging inside of it. Each attempt one of the soldiers made to lob a piece of life magic into it was thwarted by the monster simply knocking it away or taking the hit itself.

It was buying time, but for what?

I snatched up my sword, my arm screaming in pain as I made my way over to the man in charge.

"Tell me you brought a life blessed grenade or something." I slashed through some threads as they tried to snake their way up my leg. "Something tells me that tear is about to get really nasty."

Austin glanced over his shoulder to snarl before snapping his attention back on the charms being placed around the vampire.

"Fuck off, Wilde. Stay out of the way."

"I can get around this thing if you get those charges set." I wiped blood from my temple. "But I just have a sliver of raw essence."

"I'm not giving you my bomb." He shouldered his rifle and took a few more shots to give Worth time to slide some charges in place. "You want to be useful? Help get the area clear."

"Your team is in pieces, Austin." I caught his arm and tugged him backward. "Stop being an idiot and let me help!"

Austin wheeled on me, nostrils flaring and sweat slicking his brow. He grabbed my collar and wrung it tight, bringing us close enough that had he not been like a brother to me, I thought we were gonna kiss.

"For all I know, this is one of your vampires," he spat, both figuratively and literally a little on my cheek.

"I like them with less teeth." I wiped my cheek. "Also, you saw it try to kill me. It's not one of mine."

"I don't trust you." He shoved me backwards so hard I almost fell on my ass. "Now get out of my way, or I'll put you down."

I showed my palms in surrender, and he went back to commanding his team I was clearly not part of.

I had been expecting something to that effect, but it still stung like a son of a bitch.

Alright.

Plan B: Wait until the monster was grounded, then throw the life magic grenade I stole off Austin while he was being a Grumpy Gus into the tear.

Easy peasy.

Austin set off a line of grounding charms under the vampire's spider legs, freezing it in place and forcing it down onto its belly. While the beast wasn't able to chase after anyone, it still had a tongue with insane reach, and the baffling ability to throw out corrupted heart strings like spider silk.

With its legs pinned and body starting to look a lot like Swiss cheese, the vampire got desperate.

Black veins had grown from the tear like a cancer, ignoring the natural laws to branch out in directions that didn't make sense. Some of them ran along the ground like gravity had pulled them down, others shot for the sky, attached to nothing but air and negative space. The void inside churned like a hurricane, and the threads spilling from the vampire thickened into rope.

Whatever fleeting hold they had on their victims solidified, and one unlucky bastard was too close to be saved.

The vampire froze its prey with charm so powerful, the man was cheering with glee as he was tossed into the gaping maw of the void creature, gobbled up like an after-dinner mint. Not one drop of the man was wasted, and the monster was rewarded with a renewed wave of energy from the fresh blood.

It rose up, crashing the hold the grounding charms had over it, and decided it was going to take out its frustration on everyone involved.

Great.

The ugly bastard was extremely pissed off at the scurrying humans trying to upset its dinner, which gave me a chance to rush its home base. The tear was festering when I finally closed the gap, the black fungus spreading from it starting to take a life of its own. Death magic spilled from all directions, the nothingness inside churning with a tornado of mutated bio-magic.

A wave of emotion trickled through my blocker, a tug of doubt whispering that I was making a mistake. I knew it was artificial, a trick of the magic cocktail fermenting inside of the void, but it made me pause for just a heartbeat.

Only a breath.

And its claws were in me.

Hunter.

His voice was so quiet, so gentle over the chaos surrounding me, that I almost thought I'd imagined it.

My fingers had started to pull the pin at the top of the grenade, hooked and ready to yank and toss right into the center of the madness. Behind me, a vampire was hissing and bellowing noises of nightmares and horror. In front of me, a different vampire was whispering in the dark.

My vampire.

Hunter.

"Zane." I wrung my eyes shut and steadied my grip, trying to shake his voice from my head.

Hunter.

Icy fingers grabbed at my chest, twisting my heart into pieces. I knew it was fake.

Of course it was fake.

Zane wasn't there. I knew he wasn't there.

"Zane?" I called out, hating myself for it.

The silence that followed crushed me, drowning me in a wave of sorrow so profound I thought I was going to fall into myself like a dying star.

I could reach him. I could get him. I just needed to get closer, to call for him, reach my hand into the void and?—

"Fall back!"

The panic in Austin's voice was a beacon through the fog, and I snapped back to reality just as my hand neared the icy grip of the tear. His scream pulled me around, hot stones lining my gut as I witnessed the vampire get the upper hand.

The heart strings had grown barbs, wrapping themselves around the legs of Paris and Worth, and was dragging them screaming to the hungry maw of teeth.

Gunfire was coming in shorter bursts, life magic peppering the beast but doing little to quell its efforts. They were running out of ammo, their blades unable to cut through the sharp threads biting into their comrades' limbs.

I saw a flash of gold from two beautiful horns, a flurry of long hair, and Sias fired a few rounds directly into the vampire's mouth. His slick, polished shoe clamped down on the thread holding on to Paris, and he tried to stop the momentum of the pull by grinding down as he fired.

He was bleeding from his hairline, a streak of crimson painted the left side of his face. A bloom of red was over his chest, the fabric torn from where a claw or scaly lick had caught him.

His eyes were molten rubies of defiance as one of the threads wrapped around his neck. They didn't waver when he was brought to his knees.

Sias was going to die.

I was watching him die.

"No!"

I tried to spin away from the tear, but my arm was tangled in a mess of black veins growing from the void tear. The fabric of Zane's jacket melted into the touch, adhering to the sharp grip of malignant death magic. The void wouldn't budge as I shook my arm with everything I had, leaning my weight against its hold. The fabric stretched, the hem popped from my abuse.

"Let go of my fucking jacket, you ugly shit!"

I chanced a glance back, my heart wedged between ribs as Austin whipped his sword free and rammed it into the vampire's side.

A feral roar sounded from the beast, backhanding Austin with such force that his body landed limp across the hood of a nearby car. The threads attached to its victims tugged, bodies thrashing like fish on the line.

The creature turned, its mouth wide and starving, and I watched helpless as Sias got dragged inside.

Gold and defiant red.

Disappearing into the mouth of a vampire.