A Shade of Vampire 72: A Conspiracy of Realms, page 2
“And likely one of the mooks we saw in the forest there, before we got the Cerixian soil samples,” Amelia muttered, her brow furrowed as she glowered at Fez.
His expression began to soften, his shoulders dropping as the serum rushed through his veins. He looked up at Jax, pursing his lips. “You keep trying… You’ll fail again,” he said, slurring his words.
Jax smirked, then glanced at me. “He’s one of four who were most susceptible to our mind-bending. The serum is definitely working, but, like Shayla said, we need to strengthen the formula. It differs from one fae to another, too, so each of these syringes is custom made.” He pointed at the glass syringe, which had been discarded in a box beneath a corner table.
“What sort of intel have you been able to gather from them so far?” Eira asked.
“Their hiding spots. A few names of cult members, not only from their home planets but also from neighboring galaxies. They’re well connected, which is why some of them were able to evade capture. But we’ll get them all, eventually. The deeper we dig with our mind-bending, the more painful it becomes, and the harder it is for them to lie just to make it stop.”
“So, not traditional torture,” Amelia concluded.
Jax shook his head. “It’s effective.”
“I, for one, am still amazed that someone would do this to themselves,” I said, pointing at Fez’s facial scars. He’d basically mutilated himself, like other cult members. He’d used a sharp blade, carving his own skin and flesh, to make those Hermessi symbols permanent. “Fanatics, eh?”
“I stand by my faith and by my gods!” Fez hissed.
“They’re not gods,” Shayla replied dryly. “They’re entities with power and with an agenda that will wipe you all out.”
“No. We were promised a safe haven. The rest of you might perish, but not us! We will be saved!” Fez said, making Shayla smile.
“The serum is working.”
Indeed it was. Otherwise, Fez would’ve been closed off and saying nothing, like the other cult members whose interrogations I’d witnessed over the past couple of days. That serum was doing something right, for sure.
“Okay, so what are we hoping to find out today?” Heron asked, placing his fingers on Fez’s temples.
Jax’s Wards were out hunting cult members. He’d insisted that they help GASP, instead of amplifying his mind-bending interrogation techniques. Jax and Heron were working together, anyway, and that built up a strong-enough mental attack that would eventually make the susceptible prisoners crack. In addition, Jax had feared that amplifying his mind-bending with his Wards might be too violent for the prisoners’ brains. Fearing the possibility of turning their minds to mush before getting something useful out of them, the Dorchadas brothers had agreed to take a more physical approach and gradually break down the Hermessi-controlled barriers, without crippling the prisoners.
Jax moved in front of him, pressing his index and middle fingers against the fae’s forehead. This looked like a two-pronged mental attack with added physical contact for an increased intensity, and I was all for it. My pulse was already racing in anticipation of what Fez might tell us under the right pressure and influence.
“There’s only so much we can get out of him in one day without turning his brains to mush,” Jax warned us. “This is extremely hard on him, and he’ll need some time to recover before we can delve deeper.”
I nodded slowly, then exchanged glances with Raphael, Amelia, and Eira. “We want to know what he’s been told about the ancient Hermessi. The ones that were there when the first ritual attempt took place.”
“You heard him,” Jax said to Fez. Sparks flickered in his jade eyes as he stared down at the fae.
For a brief moment, nothing seemed to happen. But Jax and Heron’s mind-bending was already at work, bypassing the brain’s natural defenses. In this battle of wills, Fez was still holding his own. Beads of sweat bloomed on his face, dripping down and soaking his cotton shirt. He quivered, grunting from the pain as he closed his eyes. With the serum and the mind-bending, Fez seemed to be in a crippling amount of pain.
“You… have no… right to… do this!” he growled, struggling against his restraints. Heron and Jax never broke physical and mental contact with him. Maras didn’t normally need to touch their targets, but in this case, Jax and Heron had decided it was necessary, in order to make sure they dug deep enough. They kept drilling, throwing their heaviest mind-bending at him, until a drop of blood trickled from his nostril.
“You’re hurting him,” Eira murmured, unable to take her eyes off him.
“He knows it’ll go away if he stops fighting us. We’ve been through these motions before, Fez, don’t be stupid,” Jax said to him between gritted teeth.
“What do you know about the ancient Hermessi? Anyone out there who’d be willing to help?” Heron asked.
The question had an even more powerful effect on him. He gasped. His eyes rolled into his head as he went into a violent set of convulsions.
“Come on, Fez, let it out. The Hermessi won’t save you. They left you for dead here,” Heron added, narrowing his eyes.
“Argh… the old ones won’t help!” Fez shouted, caving under the pressure. “They’re all for the ritual! They’ll never tell you anything! The neutral one won’t speak, either! They’ve got his kid! He won’t risk it!”
My heart stilled. Blood gushed out from his nose, bringing the interrogation session to an abrupt end. Jax and Heron stepped away from Fez, while Shayla and Safira began his healing care—sterile pads to stop the bleeding, mixtures and potions forcefully poured down his throat to stop his brain from hemorrhaging.
It had lasted less than a minute, and yet it had yielded incredible results. Jax and Heron were both panting and smiling.
“That was amazing,” Amelia breathed.
“Yeah, but we can’t get more out of him for at least a day,” Jax said. “We’ll move on to the other three soon, but I need a moment to rest, and so does my brother.”
“It takes a toll on us, too,” Heron continued. “Normally, we dispense our mind-bending ability in mellow waves to avoid energy depletion. Here, though… We’ve had to put it all in to get these answers. It’s a natural process… Can’t be rushed.”
“No, no, it’s okay,” I said. “We already know more now than we did a minute ago.”
Fez was out cold but still alive. Shayla measured his vitals, while Safira cleaned the rest of the blood from his face. Raphael cleared his throat. “There’s an ancient Hermessi out there, a neutral that hasn’t taken any sides but knows what happened to the first ritual. There’s also his child, kept as collateral by the other Hermessi,” he said, expanding on Fez’s own words. “Guys, gals… I think we just caught our first major break since learning about Death’s involvement.”
Hansa and Avril removed Fez’s straps and carried him out of the interrogation room. “You boys rest. We’ll be back with the next one,” Hansa said before reaching the end of the hallway.
Jax and Heron didn’t need to be told twice. They both climbed onto the metal table behind the chair and sat down, their backs leaning against the cold wall.
“Talk about turning to mush.” I chuckled softly, then clapped my hands once to draw focus back to what we’d just learned. “Okay! So, someone out there thought it would be a good idea to kidnap a Hermessi child to stop his or her father from helping us. Any chance we can find out who that is? At all?”
Amelia sighed. That was never a good sign. “I doubt it. There is absolutely nothing in our library notes to help us on this topic. And I don’t think any of the rebel Hermessi would know about who this neutral is. If there’s one thing that has become painfully clear since we first tackled the Hermessi, it’s that they will stop at nothing to protect any information that might damage them or the ritual.”
“You might learn more if we dig into the other three cultists,” Heron said, then pointed a thumb at Shayla. “Our wicked witch here is gonna have to tweak the serum a little bit, though, to get the most out of them.”
“I agree with Heron,” Shayla replied, wearing an encouraging smile. “Don’t lose hope yet.”
“We’re nowhere close to losing hope,” I said. “It’s just… time isn’t on our side.”
Safira stepped forward. “It will be a while until more intel comes out. You would be better off looking into the pink waters, while we handle the cultists.”
“The pink waters as portals to the gods, you mean?” I asked.
She nodded. “Viola will welcome you at Mount Agrith whenever you’re ready. If there is even the slightest chance that you might get somewhere with the pink waters, you should certainly look into it. You said time isn’t on your side, so you shouldn’t be wasting it here, waiting for Jax and Heron to recover.”
Speaking of, the Mara siblings had already dozed off, Jax’s head resting on Heron’s shoulder. The interrogation process had clearly drained them, and Safira was right. The Daughters had already granted us access to Mount Agrith for the procurement of Devil’s Weed sprigs. We’d seen the pink pond, and we’d speculated about it aplenty. Viola had surveyed the waters, using a combination of science and magic to see what lay beneath—so far, no conclusive results had come forth.
“It’s a good idea,” I replied. “We might as well see if that reference from the library is worth something or it’s just a legend.”
“You should gather more Devil’s Weed while you’re there, just in case,” Safira added. “I know Inalia told you to wear it on you at all times, but I worry it might not be as effective if it dries out. It’s just a hunch.”
“It’s a useful one,” Amelia replied. “Thank you, Safira. The last thing we need is those Shills coming back.”
“The Hermessi haven’t found you since Cerix, I see,” the Daughter said, smiling.
We all shook our heads. “The sprigs make it harder for them to look for us. If they were able to sense us and track us down before—even if it took them an hour or more—that ability no longer exists. Whatever this Devil’s Weed is doing, it’s working.”
“We must still be careful, though,” Raphael said. “There have been rumors of strange creatures spotted in the deep woods around the volcanoes, including around Mount Zur. The sprigs won’t keep us hidden from the Shills if we’re close to them. They will catch our scent, and they will follow.”
“We do have an advantage here, on Calliope,” I replied. “The Dearghs can keep an eye on the woods. Their population has grown since Azazel was vanquished. They’re more than capable of raising the alarm if they find Shills sneaking around here.”
The ten remaining active volcanoes of Calliope had erupted several times since Azazel’s reign came to an end. The witches and the Druids of GASP had used powerful combinations of magic to protect the locals from lava and toxic fumes, making each event more bearable for the people. Each eruption had given birth to new Dearghs, helping replenish their ranks.
At this point, there were ten to fifteen of them per volcano—giants made of stone, with fires burning deep inside them. They could be trusted, and they ruled the territories surrounding their mountains. They were more than willing to help protect us from the Shills, too. After all, it had been thanks to a handful of GASP members that the Dearghs had been given another shot at peace and healthy living on Calliope.
“You know… as a side note, I’ve been wondering. Are Dearghs also a product of the Hermessi, directly, like you or the Shills?” Eira asked Safira. “They’re born from the volcanoes, aren’t they?”
“Yes, they are,” Safira replied. “They may not come from crystal eggs nurtured in the pink waters of Mount Agrith, but yes, they are our kin, in a way. Our Earth Hermessi has been generous to Calliope.”
“All right. We’ll go to Mount Agrith, then,” I said, bringing this conversation to a fruitful end. “I suppose Jax and Heron will send over whatever information they get while we check the pink waters.”
Safira gave me a warm smile. “Rest assured, they will.”
“We’ll see you later, Safira. Thank you,” Amelia replied, then turned around to walk out. Eira, Raphael, and I joined her. Shayla’s voice stopped us for a moment.
“Tae, be careful out there. You don’t know what’s in those waters, but you do know that nature is primal. If other creatures live in Mount Agrith’s… primordial soup, they might see you as an invader.”
I gave her an over-the-shoulder glance. “We’ll be careful, I promise.”
As we walked out and down the main hallway, Raphael gave me a soft nudge. “We won’t be careful, will we? We’re just going to jump in and see what happens, huh?”
I couldn’t help but chuckle. “Not unless one of us loses a bet.”
“Oh, good, and I’ve got the perfect test subject, too,” Raphael replied.
Amelia playfully smacked him over the shoulder. “I told you to stop getting Herakles in trouble.”
Eira and I looked at one another, then stifled a hearty laugh. Our team was growing tighter and stronger, despite the temporary operational limbo we’d found ourselves in. We didn’t know which way to go next, but we did know that we’d kill anything that dared come between us, that tried to hurt one of us—or our loved ones, by extension.
Deep in the very core of my soul, I was certain that Amelia, Raphael, Eira, Riza, Herakles, Varga, Eva, and even Lumi would be instrumental to our mission. To our survival. I was fortunate to be with these people, and I was determined to make sure we all walked out of this in one piece and still breathing, no matter what.
Riza
Our crew reunited on the edge of the pink pond of Mount Agrith. Above, the twin peaks glistened in the moonlight, an ocean of stars flooding the midnight sky. Silence reigned in these parts, as if no living creature dared to come too close to the liquid that could spawn new life. Viola had told me that the mountain had been revered for ages—even before the first Daughter came out from her egg, reddish-pink hair flowing in the wind and the power of a half-goddess at her fingertips.
We’d made plans for pretty much anything that lay ahead, while Taeral and his group had participated in an interrogation on Mount Zur. There were still many unknowns, so our plans were only worth something if fate itself followed the pattern we hoped for—and that rarely happened.
Taeral had returned with a slice of good news, or, better said, useful information. There was a neutral Hermessi who’d seen the first ritual attempt go south, but his child was held hostage by the other elements to keep the neutral Hermessi from talking. Firr couldn’t remember the event according to Harper, so our only option was this neutral Hermessi. Who he was or where we could find him, we didn’t know yet. Hopefully, Jax, Heron, Avril, Shayla, and Safira’s efforts would yield more details soon.
Viola had spent the past couple of days probing these waters. The pond itself was beautiful, downright breathtaking. A perfectly oval surface that glimmered pink beneath the moonlight, like a small sea of precious gems. Devil’s Weed grew on the edges, its round leaves framing the pink water.
“I haven’t found the bottom yet,” Viola said, gazing at the pond.
“How deep did you get?” Herakles asked.
I sometimes found myself watching him, unable to speak a word, fascinated by the way he moved. It always came to a sudden halt when his lime-green eyes found me. My heart stopped, then skipped around in my chest like a hyperactive neutron star. With each day that passed, I became more and more enamored with him, and I didn’t know what to do with that. We had so much to deal with. We were in so much danger… How could I possibly hope for something to happen between us, when we spent most of our time looking for a way to save ourselves, our planets, and two entire dimensions?
“About two hundred feet,” Viola replied. “I’ve brought in multiple lengths of cable.”
“Did you use any cameras?” Taeral inquired.
Viola, much like the rest of us, didn’t know what the pink water would do. It didn’t hurt her, but then again, she’d been hatched from it—the same might not apply to us. The samples she’d lifted gave us nothing—they simply couldn’t be studied under the microscope. They appeared as a pink mass, and there were no particles visible. We’d all experienced enough strangeness over the years to know that it was never a good idea to just dive into primordial waters. Not without understanding them first. It wouldn’t affect Viola immediately if she jumped in, but that didn’t mean there couldn’t be possible side effects later on from such full exposure—it could be worse for us. Not knowing irked the hell out of me.
“Yes. But they all become defective below a hundred feet. They didn’t record anything past that,” she said. “I went in as well but didn’t see anything. It got darker the deeper I went. I stopped at two hundred feet. I had more success with the cameras than with my own being… Phoenix and Dmitri took them all apart, and they weren’t able to tell me what went wrong. The processors just stopped functioning, even though they’re waterproof. It’s strange, but frankly not unexpected.”
“How so?” Amelia asked.
“Well, these pink waters created me and my sisters. They’re mystical, powerful. Maybe whatever fuels them doesn’t like being poked and prodded, not even by me,” Viola explained. “However, I did manage to spot flickers of light where the bottom might be, from up here. There’s something down there, for sure.”
“Okay, so how do we do this?” Raphael replied. “Or, better said, what next?”
He was eager to move this along, much like the rest of us. No one liked being idle in the midst of so much happening. The Hermessi were gaining on us, and, despite our little Devil’s Weed artifice, we still weren’t anywhere near close to stopping them. Even Phoenix was stuck, using a complex combination of magic and technology to study the cosmos of the In-Between and find the oldest twenty-planet solar system. According to ritual lore we’d uncovered, that was where the Hermessi had to complete their quest. His task was daunting, to say the least.
What would come afterward, theoretically, was worse. We’d agreed to survey said solar system and destroy one of its planets, hoping that might hamper the Hermessi’s efforts to complete their ritual this time around. Meanwhile, we hung around the pink water of Mount Agrith, wondering how to approach it to see if it was some kind of “portal to the gods,” like we’d read in those ancient Cerixian manuscripts from the Lemnos Woods.
