Ivy League Illusion, Part 4
The Enemy Within
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The vampires took a step forward when my sunlight started to flicker. I tried to force myself to calm down, and the light became a little bit more stable. The pattern I had drawn in the air was still in place, though how long it might last, I had no idea.
I had magic, but I couldn’t remember how it worked. However, that was far less frightening than the chilling voice inside of me and the sharp claws that seemed determined to tear that voice—and whatever thing to which the voice belonged—free.
“Stay back!” I yelled. “We all know I can do worse than just a little sunlight if I need to.”
Even though my voice was shaky, Carlos and the other vampires looked spooked by that statement and fell back a couple steps. If only I had some idea of how to get the most out of my magic, I’d be able to escape from them.
On the other hand, if they figured out I was bluffing, they could wait until the pattern ran out of power. I felt a little weaker, suggesting that it was costing me something to maintain the magic. When I became exhausted, the vampires could recapture me.
“Who are you?” I asked the voice inside of me. Though it gave me the creeps, it did seem to know more about my magic than I did.
After a nerve-wracking pause, the voice said, “You call my Nidhoggson.”
“How are you in my head?”
“The vampires have made you forget a great deal, or you would know the answer yourself. All that is important now is that I have the power to get you out of this situation. The blood drinkers will surely kill you if you don’t escape from here.”
“Answer my question!” I had the feeling that Nidhoggson was not my friend. The sensation of claws scraping at my insides subsided when I started talking to him, a clear indication that he must have been the one scratching to get out.
If he was somehow trapped inside me, I must have imprisoned him for a reason.
“Can we talk about this?” asked Carlos. “Yeah, we’re vampires. Yeah, we took you to find out your secrets. But we’re facing deadly peril. Otherwise, we never would have acted that way. And if we meant you harm, we’d have drunk every last drop of your blood weeks ago.”
“How are you going to learn my secrets if you’ve wiped out my memory?” I asked. Though it was an obvious question, Carlos opened his mouth but said nothing. He must not have anticipated I’d ask that.
“I’m still waiting for an answer, Nidhoggson.”
“I am part of you. I developed inside you as a result of the ritual you used to master the runes.”
“What did the ritual involve?”
“Is that really the most important question right now?” Nidhoggson started scratching again as if he couldn’t help himself, though his voice remained calm and controlled. Even so, he had a decent point.
“What…rune can I use to get out of here?”
“None offers a direct escape from this place. If you let me out, though, I can free us.”
“The memory erasure was intended to be temporary,” said Carlos belatedly. “Once you trusted me enough, we would have removed the spell, and you would tell us what we needed to know.”
“The fact that you took so long to respond tells me that isn’t an honest answer,” I replied. “You’ll have to do better than that.”
Taking a small gamble, I willed Sowilo to brighten. Its sunlight did become more intense, and three of the vampires gasped. All of them stepped back a little further. But I also felt the rune pull more strength from me. There was a limit to how long we could play this game.
“What will you do if I free you?”
“Defeat our enemies.”
“Be specific!”
“I will take control of your body and use your magic to better effect.”
I couldn’t read Nidhoggson’s mind, but I could feel him, still cold and inhuman as he squirmed around within him. I wasn’t sure I trusted him any more than I trusted the vampires.
“Just tell me what you would do, and I will do it.”
“It’s not that simple.” Nidhoggson scratched harder. “In your current impaired condition, you would not be able to execute the magic well enough. Only I can save you.”
“Tell me what I need to know, or stop bothering me,” I replied. “I’m not letting you take over.”
Nidhoggson roared in my head, shaking me up so badly that Sowilo disappeared, taking the sunlight with it. The vampires charged, but even though my hands were trembling, I managed to retrace the rune before they could reach me. They started retreating before I could finish.
I didn’t want to look the proverbial gift horse in the mouth, but their retreat was odd. Based on how fast they were moving when they started their charge, they should have been able to reach me before I could finish redrawing Sowilo. Had they retreated on purpose to allow me to finish? That made no sense.
“This stalemate can’t last forever,” said Nidhoggson. “The sun never rises in this place. The vampires will simply wait until you tire and then recapture you.”
He was probably right, but I still wasn’t ready to trust him. Instead, I started moving away at little bit, willing the rune to follow me as I did so. It drifted after me. That meant I could get out of here without needing to surrender to Nidhoggson.
“You can’t run away from us,” said Carlos. “There’s no way out.”
I assumed that vampires needed to get blood from somewhere, and I doubted that they were living on me alone. That meant Carlos was lying—again.
I picked up my pace until I was jogging. The vampires got out of my way but followed at a safe distance. Carlos kept calling out to me, but I ignored him.
It was harder for me to ignore Nidhoggson. The sensation of scratching within me was vivid enough that I could almost believe something like a rat was inside me and physically trying to scratch his way out.
As far as I could tell, the surrounding land was laid out pretty much in the same way Harvard had been, so either the illusionary Harvard layout was configured to match the place, or the place had been created to match Harvard’s layout. That seemed like an incredible amount of work just to dupe me. Whatever magical secrets I knew, they must be spectacular for this much effort to be worth it.
I saw a few other vampires as I ran, but none of them tried to approach me. Unfortunately, I didn’t see anything that even remotely resembled an exit.
I had assumed that I could leave this place if I left the area covered by the Harvard illusion, but the desolate landscape—if the distant parts were real and not just another illusion—extended well beyond that, with no obvious escape path anywhere in sight. Carlos might actually have been telling the truth about it being impossible to leave. Yet the vampires had to get food from somewhere. It had to be possible for them to leave.
A short, black-robed, hooded figure stepped out from behind a dead tree up ahead. I couldn’t see his face, so I couldn’t tell if he was a vampire or not.
“Halt!” he said in a voice much louder than I would have expected from his diminutive form.
The vampires who were still trailing me focused all their attention on him. Could he be their leader? I felt something radiating from him, perhaps power.
“Submit or die!” he shouted. I considered charging him and letting the sunlight fight the battle for me, but I still wasn’t sure he was a vampire. If, like me, he had magic and, unlike me, knew how to use it, I could be in trouble.
“Let me out!” insisted Nidhoggson in an inner voice loud enough to rattle my teeth. “He is too dangerous for you to face alone.”
The hooded figure raised a hand, and I suddenly felt much weaker. My sunlight flickered like a candle in the wind.
"“LET ME OUT!” roared Nidhoggson loudly enough to make my skull vibrate. I continued to weaken, and the vampires moved much closer. My sunlight was almost as pale as moonlight, and the rune itself flickered.
I felt as if I could hardly breathe, as if my lungs were being squeezed by the hooded figure’s magic. Even if Nidhoggson had given me a rune to block hostile magic, my hands were shaking too badly to draw it in the air.
“All right,” I said. “Come out.”
As he emerged with a triumphant roar, this one broadcast through my own throat, I realized that being eaten by the vampires might have been the lesser of two evils.
Nidhoggson was just as inhuman as I’d feared, and he hadn’t told me the whole truth. Letting him take over meant more than just handing over control of my magic. I felt fangs forming in my mouth. I looked down at my hands and saw my fingernails morphing into claws. Black, shiny scales quickly covered my skin. I felt itching on my shoulder blades that I instinctively knew was first sign of wings preparing to sprout.
Ivy League Illusion is related to the Different Dragons series. (The action falls after the end of the third book.)
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