5. WYVERN

WYVERN

E arlier …

Fiona felt the air thicken and the temperature drop even further before the ghosts stopped streaming towards the Well of All Souls. It was as if time stopped. She blinked and the souls were pouring upwards . They reared up like a tidal wave around the well itself. And they hung there before they crested and flooded outwards towards Caemorn, Balthazar and herself.

"Balthazar!" She gasped and reached for his shoulder--ready to teleport them out of the way--but he wasn't there.

Her head jerked towards where the other Vampire should have been, but instead of standing beside her, Balthazar had collapsed to the ground. Her mouth opened in an "O" of horror and surprise. What had happened? Had he been given his Second Death? Had his soul been sucked out of his body?

She glanced up. The souls were flying towards them. Mouths opened in howls of rage. Eyes black pits that showed a fierce and terrible glee. Fingers outstretched like claws ready to rip them apart.

There was only one thing she could do to help Balthazar and herself. She dropped to her knees and put her hands on Balthazar's chest. Just as she felt the cold, clammy fingertips of the nearest ghosts touch her knee, she teleported them away from this place.

They landed only about five hundred feet from the Well of All Souls, a small opening in the midst of the trees that she had noticed on their walk to this place. They were out of sight of the ghosts. If the ghosts actually needed to see them to find them.

She turned Balthazar over onto his back. His eyes were closed and his lips were parted. He looked asleep. His eyeballs moved underneath his closed lids as if he were in REM sleep. She slapped his cheeks, at first lightly and then harder.

"Balthazar! Balthazar!" she hissed frantically. "You've got to wake up! Damnit! You've got to wake up! Christian is in trouble!"

She looked towards the Well of All Souls and it looked to be a wash of white. The souls were so close together that she couldn't see the well or the trees or anything. She certainly didn't see Christian who had sunk down into the rush of spirits and she didn't see Caemorn either.

"Balthazar, goddamn you! Wake up!" she cried.

But Balthazar's head just lolled from side to side with cheeks reddening with every slap, but not consciousness opening his eyes or lighting his lips. He was well and truly unconscious. He couldn't help her. He was down for the count.

Fiona struggled to her feet. Her right knee, which the ghosts had touched, felt like it had a dead spot in the center. She fiercely rubbed her hand over it and sensation started to come back almost immediately. It tingled painfully as it came back to life.

That was just one touch. What's happened to Christian and Caemorn who are in the middle of all of this?

She had to get them away from the ghosts. If she went to get help now, it might be too late for them. No, she would have to teleport in and out so fast that the ghosts wouldn't even know she was there before she wrenched them out of harm's way.

This will take pinpoint teleporting , she thought and drew in a deep breath and narrowed her eyes.

She could do this.

She pictured in her head exactly where she'd seen Christian sink down into the "mist" of ghosts. She could picture the edge of the well. The way the stone was cracked and smoothed down almost as if the passage of the spirits had worn it down like water does to mountains. She imagined how many spans of her own hands it was between Christian and the stone lip. Two. She could almost feel Christian's body underneath her hands.

I've got you.

She teleported and her hands closed around slender shoulders that were so cold they nearly froze her palms. She gasped and released Christian. She let out a cry of despair as she couldn't see an inch in front of her face. She blindly reached out for Christian. She thought she was reaching for where his shoulders had been but her hands encountered nothing but empty air.

"Christian?! Where are you? Reach back to me!" Fiona gasped. Her teeth were chattering so badly that these sentences came out as chopped syllables and were likely unintelligible.

She dropped down onto her haunches and put her hands on the ground and inched forward towards where she knew Christian ought to be. He likely had collapsed on his side after she'd let go of him. Why had she let go?

Damnit! I will not let Christian die!

Her fingers were completely numb. She only knew that they were still on the ground and moving because she was leaning forward and resting her weight upon them as she continued to crab-crawl towards Christian.

"Christian!" Her teeth chattered like castanets. "Christian? Where are you? Answer me!"

The deadening cold stretched from her fingertips to her elbows now. It felt like her forearms might just snap off at the joint. That cold kept moving up and up. She imagined what it would feel like touching her head. Her mind.

I should leave here.

It's not safe.

I can't do anything to help anyone.

I need to run away.

Just teleport to Daemon.

Tell him what happened.

I can't do anything. I'm just a normal vampire. I'm not special. I'm just…

A girl's face floated before her in the pulsing wave of ghosts. Four-years-old. Plump cheeks. Cornrows in her hair. A smile that caused dimples to form. A faint scar on her chin. Fiona tilted her head to the side. This ghost's face was… familiar. But surely not! Libbie had died so long ago. So very long.

Please tell me she's not still here! Why hasn't she moved on?

The girl, her baby sister, smiled at her. So winsomely and warmly as she always had that the deadening cold seemed to retreat for a moment.

You need to help them, Fiona, Libbie said though there were no words. You need to help them.

I can't! I'm just one person! I'm just--

No, you aren't. You've always been different. Special. Don't you know? Don't you remember? Libbie pressed her. Still smiling, even as she was clearly asking Fiona to remember that terrible night.

I don't want to remember, Fiona told her. Not with her lips. Those were numb and they felt like they were sewn together with frost.

You have to remember. You have to understand yourself. C'mon, Fi, remember, Libbie urged.

I…

For me? Please, Fi.

The memory came over Fiona of a house filled with smoke from a fire, of her on the ground in the second floor hallway of her home, thinking she was going towards her little sister's bedroom door only to find herself near the stairs, which was the exact opposite direction. The smoke was so thick that she'd gotten turned around somehow. She turned her head to look back at where her sister's room should be, but it was all smoke and the reflected light of flames.

The fire is coming!

I need to get out!

But Libbie!

The fire roared around her. The smoke was so thick it felt like she was breathing in water. Her eyes blurred and stung. Tears left her eyes only to dry from the fierce heat half an inch from her tear ducts.

Go to get to Libbie!

Fiona turned on her hands and knees. The wooden floor pressed against the bruises she'd gotten from playing outside that day. The floor was hot and her hands felt like sausages baking on the flat top grill at the restaurant her father worked at as she shuffled back towards where she hoped her sister's room was. She imagined them splitting and the fat spilling out of them and sizzling as it hit the floor. She would only be able to feel the terrible rents in her skin and not see them happening as the smoke was so thick she could see nothing. She would not hear the sizzling of her own fat either as the fire roared so loudly that it was deafening.

She slid her right hand forward and let out a scream that she couldn't hear. It was too hot. Too hot! She imagined flames licking the underside of the wood. She was being baked. The house was an oven.

She tried sliding forward again, but the heat was like a wall, pushing her back. She retreated inch by inch by inch even as she screamed her sister's name. But it was like screaming into the void. The fire consumed her words. Suddenly, her knee had found open air, instead of more floor, and she tumbled backwards. She bounced down several steps and landed on her side in the middle of the stairwell.

She drew in a ragged breath that was more soot and heat than air. Her throat closed so tight she could only get the faintest trickle of air down it now. She turned her head and thrust her face down to the floor where the last of the clean air was. She opened her lips against the wooden stairs. She breathed against the hard material. A faint little stream of clean air flowed into her lungs, keeping her barely alive. A thin thread of oxygen.

You need to go, Fiona, a familiar voice told her.

Her head jerked up and she took in another lungful of smoke. She couldn't speak yet she somehow said in her mind, Libbie?!

You need to go, Fiona, her baby sister told her, but the voice didn't seem to be attached to a body.

Fiona swept her arms through the air all around her, but not Libbie. No pretty, plump girl with laughing brown eyes and hair in cornrows. No warm body to embrace and carry down the stairs like she had every morning.

Libbie?! Frantically, she grabbed at the smoke, but no sister.

You're not bound to this place like most people are, Fiona, her little sister--though was it Libbie?--said. You need to go. Just let go.

No! I have to find you!

I've found you.

Where are you? Come here? I'll carry you down!

No, Fi. You can't leave by the stairs.

Fiona didn't just feel the heat from the second floor now. She felt it from below. Smoke was all around her, blocking out the stairway that curled down to the first floor of their home. But she could see orange and red and yellow through that dense, gray smoke below her.

Libbie, we're trapped! There's fire down below too!

Yes, there is. You only have a few moments left. So you have to go, Fi, her sister told her more firmly.

The fire roared like an animal. She could hear the snap and crack of wood as it broke apart with the heat and the flames. There was no way down. None!

I can't! I can't get out, Libbie!

You're not trapped. Neither of us is. Let go, Fiona. Let go , the voice said. Imagine air. Clean air. Endless amounts of it.

I--I can't!

Imagine our front yard. The white steps. The cracked path. The chalk that we left there yesterday. Remember?

I… I… yes?

Imagine picking up the piece of pink chalk, Fi. Imagine the feel of the chalk in your hands. Dry and powdery and a little silky? Can you imagine it?

I… I can.

Go there. Go to where the chalk is, Fi. Go.

Fiona closed her eyes to the smoke and the heat and the flames and concentrated just as her sister had said. When she opened them, she was on her knees on the pathway that led to her house. There was no smoke. Only the night sky and the churr of crickets.

She blinked her raw eyes, which still stung from the smoke. But her vision cleared enough and she saw the pink chalk lying discarded on the rough stone in front of her. She picked it up.

The chalk… Libbie?

There was an explosion and the sound of glass tinkling. Her head jerked towards her home.

LIBBIE!!!!!

Flames roared out of the upstairs windows like a monster's call to battle. In the background, she heard the thin wail of the fire engines coming. As she watched the flames consume her sister's bedroom window, she knew that Libbie was dead. Gone to a place she could not follow.

She'd been nine when this had happened.

She hadn't been a Vampire yet.

But she'd teleported out of danger all the same.

She'd pushed all of that out of her mind. If she'd thought about it at all, she had believed it a dream, something of her new Second Life mixing with her first. But it wasn't. It was true. Fiona focused again on the spirit's face. It was Libbie's face. Her sister smiled at her.

How did I teleport before I became a Vampire, Libbie? Fiona asked.

Her sister tilted her head and laughed. You know why. You can be anywhere. You can go everywhere. Nothing binds you. Because you are…

"Wyvern," Fiona spoke out loud.

Yes, you are Wyvern. Her sister smiled and laughed and faded into the sea of ghosts.

Thank you, Libbie.

Warmth flooded her deadened limbs. She got to her feet. There was a wild grin on her face. She didn't blindly reach for Christian. She simply willed herself to be holding him and she was. She then teleported them both to where Balthazar still lay unconscious.

Out of the fog of ghosts, she could see that Christian was unconscious too. She gently laid his slender form against Balthazar's. Though both of them were gone from the world, they turned towards one another. They weren't asleep. They weren't unconscious from blows.

She narrowed her eyes. Their souls were somehow pulled out from their bodies. Not fully. Not yet. Kaly had trapped them both somehow. She wasn't sure how to make that right. She worried that if she teleported them fully out of danger that the distance might break whatever held their souls to their bodies. This was as far as she dared to take them.

"Hold on. Both of you. I'm getting Caemorn," she said.

She was back on her feet and willing herself to Caemorn. He was standing, unlike the other too, but he made no sound or movement when her arms went around his waist.

"Where do you think you're taking them?" A silky smooth voice asked.

She had met Artemis Alucius only once, but she recognized his voice and his body. The ghosts cleared and she saw that there were two figures standing in the moving mists of the spirit forms. The one nearest her, the one that had spoken, was Artemis. He was beautiful with golden hair and an angelic face. She thought to get her bow that was strapped across her back, but she'd be dead far before she could move an inch. Artemis might look like a beautiful teenager, but he was not.

They had stopped allowing the turning of children, even teenagers. In the past, children were treated as small adults, not as beings who hadn't fully matured yet. But they knew better now. Artemis had been created at a time before then and Fiona understood why. He truly looked like an angel fallen to Earth.

"I wouldn't take Caemorn and the others away from here, Fiona," Artemis said smoothly.

He was dressed in a long frock coat of dark black silk, black pants and knee high black boots with buckles. His blond hair hung to his shoulders. Fiona thought she felt Caemorn stiffen even more, if that was possible. Clearly, she'd been right that there was some problem taking them away from here.

"Why is that?" she asked back just as smoothly, putting on what she thought of as her Order personality. The cold and unfeeling Fiona. The Fiona that was encased in ice.

Like a magician, Artemis lifted up his right hand, fingers spread wide, and in between them were two gems. "Because this is where their souls are. One for Christian. One for Balthazar."

"Eyros," she corrected.

Artemis' eyebrows lifted. "Eyros. Hmmm, yes, I see."

"No, I don't think you do. Who is that? The woman?" She gestured with her head towards the shadowy figure who stood like a mannequin in a shop window.

"Never you mind." Artemis smiled.

Is that another of Kaly's forms? Can they control more than one body at a time?

"I see two gems in your hand. But not three. Yet Caemorn is… not himself." Fiona kept a firm hold on Caemorn. She needed the right moment to get him with the others and then… then she knew exactly what she was going to do.

"Caemorn is my fledgling. There's no need for another cell." Artemis palmed the two gems after smiling at them for a moment. "I am his prison. I am his jailor."

Fiona was chilled by that response.

"This is foolish," she said. "Whatever short term plan you have going here against Daemon won't last. He'll find you. He'll destroy you."

"I am not so easy to destroy." Artemis' gaze was distant.

Is Kaly not fully with me? Maybe distracted somehow? That's good.

"What is your endgame? Why are you doing this?" she asked.

Artemis focused on her again. There was a sheen of sweat on his head. The female figure wavered too. Artemis' voice was still smooth as he said, "Daemon must earn his crown."

"So you think that you're helping him by being his adversary?" Fiona could not hide her disbelief.

"Tell me that you didn't want to test him yourself? You wanted to know his intentions, didn't you?" Artemis challenged her with an upraised eyebrow.

She nodded. "I wanted to think that we had a choice about him being king or not. That if he wasn't worthy then…"

"Then you would deny him the throne?" Artemis nodded.

"Knowing what I know now, I realize how foolish that is," she answered evenly. "He is beyond me. Beyond you. And, like it or not, he is our king."

"You are right. He is inevitable. But he can learn," Artemis told her. "He can still be taught lessons, even by those beneath him."

"Are there any above him?" She lifted an eyebrow.

"True. There are not. All the more reason for lessons to be taught and learned."

"So you're trying to teach Daemon some lesson?" Fiona qualified. "What lesson is that?"

"That there are consequences to leaving his responsibilities, leaving us ," Artemis said. He swallowed and swayed. His face went paler than pale. The female figure went down on one knee with a shrill cry. Artemis could only gasp out, "That those consequences have long shadows."

Artemis' eyelids fluttered shut. That was what she was waiting for. She teleported to Artemis, her hand already in the pocket where the gems were. Artemis' eyelids flew open just as her hand closed around them. He skinned his lips back from his teeth and hissed at her. He tried to grab her, but she teleported away to Caemorn right out of his hands. And then she immediately teleported Caemorn to Christian and Balthazar. She had their soul gems. But even so, she wasn't sure if it was safe to move them from this place. So she slipped the gems into Balthazar's pocket. With one final look over her shoulder towards the well, she teleported to the one person who could fix all this.

"Fiona?!" Julian goggled as she appeared by them in what looked like a control room in a museum.

"Wyvern," Daemon said, recognizing her. "Take me to the Well of All Souls. I must end this with Kaly."

She nodded and teleported herself and her king back to the Ever Dark.