Werewolf Knight 5, page 19
“Far from the spot that I’d been told to raid…” he said. “At first, they took me under the ground. They bit me… they made sure that I was unable to fight. And they waited for the moonless night and laid me upon a pyre of opals. Opals that they had been stealing for decades. At the moment of pitch blackness, they imbued my entire body with vampire venom. It took all of them, not just one, but they managed it. My hands were burning, my feet, every vein in my neck. I felt my heart stop. The heart of a wolf. And instead that thud that had accompanied every step from the beginning of my life… it simply stopped. And I became a vessel for their putrid horrors.”
I had never heard anyone express so much remorse over being turned into a vampire. Well, I suppose Imelda had, but she had formerly been a Priestess. It was only to be expected.
“What happened then?” I asked.
“I prayed to the Goddess that I had died,” he said. “Because to become a creature so despised, this type of abomination… Well, it seems simply impossible. I thought that I had died. But I had not died. My fate was far worse. I woke up with a thirst in my throat that could never be quenched. And although I drank from the blood of innocents, my conscience was never changed into the conscience of a vampire. I retained my morals, my standards, and had to watch myself descend into the blackness of evil.”
I took a few breaths as the creature looked down and pawed at his face in a pathetic manner. But there were missing pieces to this story, and I knew those were the critical parts. I had so many questions, but the biggest one was why would he build an army to fight Lupercalia if he hated this new life so much?
“But why didn’t you find help?” I asked. “Why… why didn’t you return to the castle?”
“You think that the castle would’ve allowed a creature like me inside?” he seethed, and his eyes suddenly started to glow an even fiercer red. “You think that they would’ve been able to change me? I prayed to the Goddess every day and every night. All of my energy was spent trying, desperately, to pray to the Goddess. How do you think I ended up here? In the Temple that my family built a thousand years ago… Do you know what an endling is, Sir Henry?”
I racked my mine, but I had no idea what he was referring to.
“An endling?” I asked. “No, I don’t know what an endling is.”
“The last of his family,” he said. “That’s what I am. I have the unique position of being the last of my family and the first of my kind. Quite a miracle, isn’t it? I am in the unique position of being an abomination of nature… a vampire and a werewolf at once. I curse the creatures that made me who I am today, that alienated me from all that I ever knew and loved. Not only did they take me, but they brought about the end of my family line in Lupercalia.”
“But then why do you keep congress with them?” I asked. “They serve you. They even call you their Master.”
“Life is a complicated place, Sir Henry,” the Master scoffed. “You should know that if you want to live in Lupercalia, or anywhere for that matter. Yes, I despise the vampires. But who is there to turn to? The Goddess, who ignored my prayers and left me in the darkness? I have seen a night with no moon whatsoever, Henry. I have seen a night where the Goddess turns away and is nowhere to be found. I know that it exists. She has ignored my plight, and I will never turn to her again!”
His voice boomed through the temple, and I had to admit that I did actually feel kind of sorry for the guy. He had been taken away from everything that he loved, with nowhere to turn to except those who had victimized him.
Back in my Jersey, he probably would have been diagnosed with Stockholm syndrome and been sent for a shit ton of therapy. But we were in Lupercalia, and his actions were about to destroy everything that was good about the place. So there would be no therapy, just a quick blow from my sword.
“I’m sorry to hear all that,” I said. “That must’ve been, um… a really hard three hundred years.”
“It’s been a terrible three hundred years,” he nodded. “Quite terrible. But there was one thing that kept me going the entire time, Sir Henry. You see, in this time where I was stuck in endless contemplation, in an endless loop of misery, I felt inspired.”
I had a feeling that this was not going to be some kind of feelings-y poetry project to help him process the loss of his former life.
“Inspired?” I asked. “In what kind of way?”
“I was double-damned, Sir Henry,” he explained. “Abandoned by the Goddess. Stuck with my hateful captors. Damned to immortality with no family, no warmth, no assistance, and… no heartbeat. I was surrounded by death. But then, from the ashes, an idea emerged. What if I were to create life out of this terrible fate? To create more of my kind in my very image?”
His wolfish, vampire face stretched into a smile, and I had to keep myself from wincing. His long, pointy teeth were yellow and sharp, and I could smell them from where I was standing a few feet away.
“What do you mean in your image?” I asked.
“I want a legacy, Sir Henry,” he replied and then chuckled. “I want the lineage that I was robbed of when these putrid creatures took me as one of their own. I thought I would never have children to carry on the family name or see my sons become warriors even fiercer than me. But now, I can have all of that.”
“That’s not possible,” I said. “Vampires don’t--”
“Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong,” he said. “For we have been working, Sir Henry. I gained the respect of the vampires by outhunting them, outsmarting them, and then organizing them these past three hundred years. I have even set up camps in every forest of the Kingdom in my honor, and they all bow to me now.”
“Good for you,” I muttered.
Gregoriat frowned at me for a moment, and I knew I’d nearly tipped him to my plan. I quickly shook my head, like I was trying to get rid of intrusive thoughts, and then offered the Master a tentative smile.
“Werewolves are much smarter than vampires,” I said. “So it makes sense.”
“Mmmm,” he murmured. “Yes, I suppose it does. When they changed me, they thought I was some stupid experiment for their entertainment, of course. But alas Henry, I became the most powerful dark creature of them all. And I intend to create more werewolf-vampires to join me in a war against Lupercalia.”
Ah, yes, there it was. The reason that he had done all of this in the first place. I stared at him blankly for a moment while I hoped that the King and Grayback had found the Moon Knights. I wasn’t sure how much longer I could keep this bastard busy.
“But… Master,” I said. “Why would you wage a war against the Kingdom that you used to love so much?”
“Why wouldn’t I wage a war against the Kingdom that abandoned me and celebrated my ruination?” he shot back without missing a beat. “The Goddess betrayed me. My own country reduced me to a… to a number, just one of those knights that never returned from battle.”
“There are many who disappear,” I said.
“Bah,” he snapped and shook his head. “Do you know, I hid here in the temple of my family after the last Gregoriat had left, and nobody came looking for me. I hate the Kingdom of Lupercalia, for I have been the victim of every shred of evil that is in this place. I have been overlooked by the Lupercalians, and I know exactly what kind of darkness and carelessness this Kingdom is capable of.”
Oh, man. There was no convincing this guy.
Part of me was super pissed off that this guy was so tortured by his personal demons that he’d literally waged a war against the entire Kingdom of Lupercalia. But I was a knight and not a therapist, so the only thing I could do was fight.
In a weird way, I was super aware that this wasn’t just about wanting to fight those who had done him wrong. It seemed like more than anything, he just wanted brethren to spend his time with like he’d had in his former life.
“There’s a better way of finding new friends,” I finally said. “If that’s what you’re looking for. Because it seems like you’re lonely more than anything. And waging a war and enslaving werewolves by making them into vampires isn’t going to make them like you.”
For a second, the Master just looked up at me and paused. He gulped before raising an eyebrow.
“Sir Henry,” he said. “It is far too late for that. I have been alone now for hundreds of years. Sometimes, I can feel my heart in my chest, even though the blood no longer runs there. I know it’s calcified by now, but I still feel it.”
“But you don’t have to plunge the Kingdom into war,” I said. “If you were to present yourself to the King--”
“It’s not war I want,” he growled. “The war is only the beginning. What I want, Sir Henry, is to plunge Lupercalia into complete darkness.”
The Master grinned while I gawked at him. I was hoping he was just speaking metaphorically, but the look on his face suggested otherwise.
“What do you mean?” I asked. “How is that even possible?”
“Tonight is the ablation,” he said, and his eyes misted over as he stared into the distance and imagined all of his maniacal plans. “But my plan is not only to birth an army in my image. No, no… I’ve moved far beyond that simple plan. No, if my magic succeeds, then tonight is the first of many. A period of darkness will ensue, and… Lupercalia will be in a permanent state of ablation. The moon will never shine down on the Kingdom again, and the Moon Goddess will be cast away, just as she cast me away.”
“But you can’t!” I shouted.
“Can’t I?” he asked with a shallow laugh. “After all of my years of suffering? The body can only take so much pain, Sir Henry. Even mortals are allowed to die of anguish when they have lost everything that they once loved. But I was robbed of that privilege. I endured a burden that no creature should have to carry. And if I am to be robbed of humanity, then I will act accordingly. Lupercalia will become as dark as my very soul.”
I could feel the fur standing on my back as he told me of his plan. Even though I was very much a warm-blooded mammal, I felt like my insides had run cold.
Lupercalia plunged into darkness? I thought that this was a plan for the vampires to take over the land, like they’d always wanted.
But this was so much more. The Master would destroy the Moon Goddess as well, and the whole country would sink into eternal darkness.
It was beyond evil, and I wasn’t even sure if I could stop him.
Chapter 14
“Not if we can help it, Gregoriat!” a voice boomed through the temple.
I raised my own sword then, and a quick glance toward the door revealed that Grayback was there, and from the sounds of it, they’d found the Moon Knights and freed them.
“Seems your plan might not be so simple after all,” I said with a grin as I turned back to the Master.
“I never thought it would be,” the Master growled.
Our eyes locked for a moment, but then another vampire jumped out from behind one of the columns. The vampire charged toward me, and I was forced to jump back as the vampire swung an axe at my head.
But Charles had made it inside the temple by then, and I saw him run forward at the same moment. He lifted his moon sword over his head and sliced through the vampire’s neck in one swift movement. The axe fell to the ground as the corpse toppled into a line of columns, and though Charles’ blow hadn’t completely decapitated the vampire, the head came off when it cracked against the hard stone.
“Charles!” I shouted when another vampire in a blue tunic jumped out at us.
Charles scrambled away as the vampire tried to slash him with its claws. I swung my blade toward the fiend’s back, but the vampire moved aside easily. It turned to face me, and I had to admit, the bastard was fucking scary. The vile, hulking creature towered at seven feet, and he looked stacked as fuck. Blue blood dribbled down his chin and stained his shirt, and when he bared his teeth at me, I could see the inside of his mouth was blue as well.
“What a feast you’ve given me,” he cackled as he swiped at me with his claws.
“Fuck you,” I growled as I swung at the vampire again.
The vampire ducked beneath my sword, but Charles was there to take another swing as well. The vampire was off balance for a moment as it stumbled away from Charles, so my fellow knight and I charged toward the hulking vampire.
The vampire dropped to the floor in a move straight out of a Hollywood movie and then rolled away before I could adjust my aim. The bloodsucker then sprang to his feet right next to Charles and grabbed the other knight’s gauntlet.
I saw Charles jerk his hand away as he brought his sword up, but the vampire danced away again with the metal glove in his possession. The vampire grinned as he waved the glove like a trophy, but then he bared his fangs and lunged toward Charles’ exposed hand.
Charles swung his blade, which the vampire ducked beneath, and then I heard the knight grunt as the vampire slammed into him. I saw the fangs latch onto Charles’ paw just as I buried my sword in the vampire’s back, and blue blood spattered on the floor as I yanked my moon sword from between the vampire’s shoulder blades.
“I’ll finish this one,” Charles declared as he sliced through the vampire’s neck.
“You’ll need this,” I said as I grabbed the gauntlet and tossed it to Charles.
“Thank you, Hank,” he said as he slipped it back on.
Two more vampires leaped at us, but these were smaller and clumsier. I sliced through the torso of one, and the top half simply fell off the bottom half of its body. Another head rolled by my feet at the same moment, and when I looked at Charles, I saw that he’d cut the head off the second vampire.
For a moment, no more vampires attacked us, so I could look around at the unfolding battle. I had no idea where all the vampires had been hiding, but there were a hell of a lot of them. The Moon Knights were dealing with the bloodsuckers easily, but there were so many that the Knights weren’t escaping unscathed. I could see puddles of blue blood smeared across the floor, and most of the knights were clearly injured.
“Where the hell is the Master?” I asked.
“I don’t see him,” Charles replied as he swatted away another vampire.
“We have to find him,” I said. “Before he can finish his plan.”
“Laniatus Luminis!” one of the Moon Knights shouted.
“Laniatus Luminis!” a few more voices joined in. “Laniatus Luminis!”
I looked at Charles, who started to join in the chant as we buried our swords deep in the chests and necks of the vampires, who were now coming at us from all angles.
“Laniatus Luminis!” I started to shout with each blow, even though I didn’t know what it meant.
Something about the sound of all of our voices together made me feel like I wasn’t just one fighter, but rather part of a large body that was fighting against a common enemy. The adrenaline pumped through me, and I knew that this was what it really meant to be part of an army.
I felt the rhythm of the chant in my bones, and it picked up speed as we lunged and parried. We were moving like one giant body by then, and I let myself be carried along by the group mind. There was no thought, just kill and move onto the next vampire.
We were moving so fast that the killing became a blur, and I barely even registered each time I swung my blade and hit something. Yet the vampires kept coming, and I could feel my muscles starting to tire from the exertion.
And then one of the wolves howled. It started off low, almost like a growl, but it soon turned into the classic wolf howl.
The other wolves started howling as well, and then I heard a loud crack. A moment later, I heard more cracking, and when I finally stopped to look around, I saw that all the columns in the temple were starting to split apart from the sheer force of our howls.
“That’s old magic!” one of the vampires hissed. “You stupid dogs! Your Goddess is too weak to provide the light protection that you are trying to achieve!”
The vampire had black, scraggly hair and looked like the human embodiment of a cigarette, with pale yellow skin and gangly legs. If I didn’t know better, I would’ve thought that it was Nick Cage in some vampire role.
“I don’t need the Goddess to kill you!” I shouted at the lithe vampire.
I swung my blade at his neck, but the vampire dodged out of the way. He hissed at me and then ducked behind one of the columns as I took another swing at him.
My blade slammed into the stone, and large chunks of rock tumbled to the floor. The vampire tried to run toward another column, but he ran into another vampire that had just lost an arm. The pair were tangled up for a few seconds, but that was all the time I needed.
I plunged my glade into the monster’s back and twisted. Black goop spilled out of the wound and stained the floor, and the vampire gasped as it tried to wriggle free. I twisted the blade one more time, just to be sure, and then I felt gravity start to pull the lifeless body to the ground.
“Damn it,” I muttered when I realized the vampire wasn’t going to just slide off my blade.
I could hear more columns starting to crumble and dust drifted up my nose as I dropped the vampire on the ground. I had to step on its back to keep it still while I pulled the blade free, and I grimaced when a few vital organs came out with the sword.
Something crashed into my back, and I swung around with my blade at the ready. But instead of a vampire, I found myself face to face with none other than the King, who was covered in vampire blood but didn’t appear to be hurt himself.
“Sir Henry,” the King said as he drove his sword through another vampire.
“Sire--” I started to reply and then froze.
A monstrous creature had just appeared behind the king that looked like a zombie panther. Its rotting flesh clung onto a skeletal frame, and the eyes were a lifeless milky white, but it still had fangs worthy of a saber-tooth.
“Sire!” I shouted as I tried to push the King behind me.
The panther lunged, and both the King and I brought our blades down on the beast. I managed to graze the panther’s side and tear through its decaying ribcage, but the creature seemed unfazed by my attack.
