Revelation
Part Five of "North of Midnight," a Spell Weaver novella
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Where we left off: Alexandra and her new friends use several methods in an effort to save Antonio from death—and vampirism. Her newfound magical perceptions help, but not enough. Dosing him with garlic causes a violent reaction from the vampire blood within him, driving him insane.
Lucas, who could move much faster than I, somehow got between the charging Antonio and me. With an almost feral movement, Antonio tried to grab him, but Lucas managed to throw him off balance with a kick to the chest, then pushed him back farther with another. Khalid, who had dropped to the ground behind Antonio, positioned himself in such a way that Antonio tripped over him and fell backward. Once the infected bellhop was on the ground, Jimmie and Khalid each held an arm. Lucas put his weight on both legs. Umbra stepped forward with her garlic-coated dagger.
“He’s not a vampire yet,” I said quickly.
“I’m just going to get more garlic into his bloodstream,” said Umbra, bending down and selecting a spot on his right arm.
My newly acquired psychic vision enabled me to track the garlic’s progress. The darkness within Antonio convulsed again as the garlic reached it. When it did, Antonio convulsed as well. The three guys gripping him held on—but just barely.
This pattern repeated itself several times. I began to worry about Antonio suffering permanent damage. How much could his body take? He already looked so pale—and so inhuman. It was as if some wild animal had burrowed into his brain.
“Anything positive to report?” asked Khalid, his voice tight.
“The darkness is shrinking, but it’s still there,” I replied. “I…I think the vampire blood is as well. That does make a kind of sense. Garlic repels vampires, but it doesn’t kill them...I don’t think. I’ve never been in a position to megadose them and find out.”
“Stake?” asked Umbra in an overly clinical tone.
I looked carefully at Antonio. He was still clearly breathing, though by this point, it was more like gasping. I could see the blood flowing in his veins, however corrupted by the faerie death curse it might be.
“He’s still alive,” I said. “He’s still human.” Physically, at least.
“Then we have to keep him alive,” said Jimmie.
“We don’t know how,” said Lucas, sounding dejected. “We don’t have access to any of our friends who might know. What can we do?”
An idea popped into my head, but it was a dangerous one. I needed to work up to it. “Has he been…part of your group for long?” I asked.
“Just a few months,” said Khalid. “Carlos, one of his cousins, was part of the original group, but Antonio’s family moved here only a short time ago.”
“Does he have magic?”
Antonio’s convulsion had settled into a steady but unnervingly constant shudder. I could swear I heard his teeth rattling.
Despite the grim situation, Khalid smiled at me. “You noticed his sex appeal! I wasn’t sure you had.”
I felt my cheeks redden. “That’s magic?”
“A seer discovered one of his ancestors was a teopixqui—priest—of the being the Aztecs thought of as a love goddess, Xochiquetzal,” said Lucas. “He was so pious that he was said to be able to channel part of the goddess’s power. Perhaps she bestowed some kind of magic ability on him. In any case, we think that’s where Antonio gets his…charm. It’s more like a passive effect than like conscious spellcasting. He hasn’t yet learned to control it.”
Khalid winked at me, and my cheeks darkened further.
“What would happen if we used the device that accelerates the development of magic on him?” I asked.
“We’ve already been through this,” said Lucas. “Maybe he’d develop more magic and be able to break the curse on himself. Maybe he’d die.”
“I know I was opposed to using the device on Alexandra,” said Khalid. “But circumstances are different now. For one thing, Antonio is doomed if we don’t try something.”
As if to punctuate Khalid’s point, another spasm ran through Antonio’s body. I couldn’t be sure, but I didn’t think he was conscious at this point. From what I could see, his heart rate was sluggish. His breathing was more erratic. The garlic had done no more than delay the inevitable.
“From what Antonio told me, the love goddess whose power his ancestor channeled also had influence in other areas,” said Lucas. “She was a goddess of fertility, pregnancy, childbirth, and flowers, among other things.”
“Love in its purest form is powerful against evil,” said Khalid. “And the fertility stuff suggests a connection to life force—the opposite of the death magic that powers vampires.”
Lucas sighed. “On paper, that sounds like exactly what we need. But there’s no guarantee Antonio’s magic would become that diverse or increase in power that much. Besides that, he appears to be out of his mind. I doubt the process is going to cure that.”
“Greater magical ability usually means a stronger mind,” said Jimmie.
“But not necessarily a more stable one,” said Lucas. “And even if increased mental power enabled him to shake off whatever is happening to him now, he’s otherwise untrained in the use of sophisticated magic. This isn’t a time when “fake it ‘til you make it,’ is going to work well.”
“Do we have another choice?” asked Umbra in her usual, detached voice. “Antonio is dying, isn’t he? And we’re trapped without the resources to beat the vampires and their allies.”
“Just do it,” whispered Antonio hoarsely. He opened his eyes, which were still red but much more focused. “None of us…none of us have any real choice.”
“Judging from the way Alexandra reacted, the process could be painful,” said Lucas gently.
“No more painful than you guys sitting on my arms and legs,” said Antonio. He tried to smile, but his face wasn’t cooperating. What he managed looked more like a lip convulsion. “Seriously, I feel as if I’m already half dead. If I can do something to help, I want to try.”
Lucas looked about to object, but Antonio got hit with another full-body spasm, and Lucas closed his mouth. We had no choice.
Umbra withdrew her dagger from Antonio’s arm, and she and I helped the guys lug him into the acceleration chamber. He’d closed his eyes again and become dead weight—an expression I’d never liked.
I glanced over to make sure the outer door had been closed. Who knew where Janice might be by now? Then we laid Lucas gently in the chamber and closed its door.
“Should we run a simulation?” asked Lucas.
“I’m trying,” said Jimmie, tapping away at the keyboard. “I’m getting an error message. The simulation is being thrown off by the vampire blood or maybe the curse.
“We need to just do it,” said Khalid. Lucas mumbled his agreement but sounded defeated.
As Jimmie prepped, I glanced over at Antonio, who still seemed to be unconscious. The partitions and all the walls shimmered with what I now knew was magic—no doubt, insulation to prevent whatever energy the device generated from hitting anyone in the control room.
“Say a prayer,” said Jimmie as he keyed in the command to start the process.
The chamber in which Antonio lay filled with a light that looked gentler to my new magic vision than it had felt to my body. But his reaction wasn’t gentle. His body was thrown into spasms that made his earlier convulsions look like twitches.
As soon as the device had run its course, the magic faded. Antonio stopped convulsing and lay on the floor. Was he breathing? I thought so, but his chest rose and fell only a little. His circulation seemed to be failing. His blood flow had slowed to a crawl. Even now, his vital organs probably weren’t receiving enough oxygen.
Within him, the faerie curse grew rapidly as the magic of the garlic dissipated.
“He’s not dead, but he soon will be,” I said. “We have to try something else!”
Silence greeted my words. I looked frantically from one person to another. The guys tried hard not make eye contact with me. Umbra’s eyes met mine, but I saw not even a glimmer of hope.
“There’s nothing else—” she began.
“Keep giving him more garlic!” I said. “That seems to prevent the curse from claiming him, at least.”
“I can stay here with him,” said Umbra, not sounding particularly enthusiastic. Then again, she almost never did. “The rest of you need to do something about our enemies, though.” She nodded to Jimmie, who unlocked the door to the containment area. She walked in and readied her dagger for another garlic treatment.
I couldn’t take my eyes off Antonio. He looked pale enough to be a vampire now, and it was obvious that the acceleration of his magic acquisition had failed miserably. I was sure I would have noticed the presence of that stronger magic in him.
“We don’t even know what they want,” said Jimmie.
“We do know they don’t want us dead—yet,” said Lucas. “But they seem to be playing with us. Surely, they came here to do more than that.”
‘Without knowing their objective—” began Khalid.
“To hell with their objective,” I said, trying to keep my voice from shaking. “What we need to do is get back the two captives. They have magic, right?”
Khalid nodded. “Among other things, they’re great healers. If we want to save Antonio, getting them back would be the logical first step to doing so.”
“But where are they being kept?” asked Jimmie. “That’s just another thing we don’t know. No location, no rescue.”
Lucas looked at me. “You can now see magic. Can you do anything else?”
“You mean find them?” I asked. “I’ve never—” I stopped myself when I realized I had no idea what else I might be able to see. “If I were going to try to find them, how would I go about it?”
“It isn’t always possible to trigger a psychic vision,” said Lucas. “I know that much from experience. If you’re a seer, the information that comes to you is going to be both nonlinear and unpredictable, though asking a mental question sometimes produces results. But if you have some more linear kind of magic perception, you might be able to get an answer just by concentrating.”
“That’s how I read the state of the defenses around this house,” said Khalid. “I’d suggest closing your eyes and thinking about Viviane and Vanora. Try to visualize the layout of the town as you do so. You might pick up some indication of where they are that way.”
“If they’re even still in town,” said Jimmie.
“Positive thinking,” said Lucas.
I noted the reference to Vanora, but I filed it away for later use. Then I put it out of my mind, closed my eyes—and nothing happened.
“You’re tense,” said Khalid. “I know this is hard, but try to relax.”
That was a little bit like telling a person falling from a great height to try to fly, but I knew he was right. I did what I could to slow my breathing, steady my heart, clear my mind. After what seemed like an unendurably long time, I began to see a map in my mind. From my earlier tour of the town, I knew I was seeing something like an overhead view. As the seconds passed, it became clearer. But I saw no indication of where our enemies might be holding captives.
“I’m not seeing much.”
“Describe what you are seeing,” said Lucas. “In as much detail as you can manage.”
I spent several minutes detailing what I could see. As I talked, I began picking up signs of magic in various places.
“Defenses are still up,” said Jimmie. “Aside from Awen, city government buildings, schools, Winn’s corporate offices, the hotel, and our homes are all covered with some kind of protective magic. If you can see that from a distance, you might be able to see where the captives are.”
“I don’t, though.”
“Maybe you don’t know them well enough to get a fix on them,” said Lucas. “But the huge number of vampires should have a pretty strong magic signature, as should the faerie intruders. Look for a concentration of those kinds of energy, and you’ll find a likely spot.”
Once I thought about vampires, it was easy to see the blood-red ring that surrounded my current location. But the other vampires were scattered, like stray drops of blood, here and there throughout town. There was no concentration.
“What about faeries?” asked Khalid. “You should probably find both together where the captives are.”
As I thought about faeries, I spotted some livelier energy intermingled with the undead vampire energy. But again, there was no concentration of power anywhere that would suggest a group guarding the captives.
“They’re hiding,” said Jimmie. “An area shielded against your attempts to find them would show up like a hole or a particularly black spot in your perception.”
Since it was night, and my view of the town was pretty dark to begin with, finding a darker spot was literally like finding a needle in a haystack. But now that I knew what to look for, I did find a blank spot.
“Where is it?” asked Khalid, perking up noticeably.
“East side of town, near the border, slightly closer to the north end of town than the south.”
“The old cemetery!” said Jimmie. “It predates the town and hasn’t been used since the new construction. It’s a perfect place to hide.”
“So far, so good,” said Lucas. “But we have no way of measuring how strong the opposing forces might be. Also, as Janice keeps demonstrating, we don’t have a great way of defending ourselves against magic. We could easily walk into a total slaughter.”
“We could wait until morning,” said Jimmie. “That would leave us with just the faeries to worry about.”
“Antonio won’t last that long,” said Umbra. “The curse itself is still unable to advance, but his body is already so damaged that he will die naturally, perhaps in just a few minutes.”
“We just have to be smart,” said Khalid. “If they have much intel on us, they won’t be expecting us to find them. We need to strike fast and hard. Jimmie’s sword will drive back any nearby vampires and probably blind them. He and Alexandra will destroy as many as possible. Umbra, Lucas, and I will focus on the faeries. We know they have at least one heavy hitter—Elatha. He’s our first priority.”
“But Umbra can’t leave Antonio!” I said, blushing again. I sounded totally like a girl in the grip of an adolescent crush—but I didn’t care.
Umbra rose to her feet, bringing her dagger with her. “I’m more use to him on the battlefield now. His current dose of garlic will last for a few minutes. By that time, we’ll have won—or not. If we do, we have healers. If we don’t, well, he won’t be dead any faster than if I’d stayed with him.”
I opened my mouth to protest, but Lucas said, “Then it is decided. Jimmie, dim the lights.” Before I could say anything else, Umbra walked to a shadow at the back of the room, beckoning us to follow. The others hurried in her direction. I took a second to look at the corpselike Antonio, whose magic still pulled at me even in his current, decrepit condition.
“I’ll be back,” I thought to him. The ghost of a smile might have flickered on his lips, but I probably imagined that. I turned and hurried after the others.
After a moment in a totally black void, I found myself in the old cemetery. By moonlight, I could see irregular groupings of tombstones, partially obscured by tall grass. I also saw at least a couple of old-fashioned crypts in the distance. Just how old was this place? The headstones and crypts seemed both older and more European than anything I would have expected to find in the Santa Barbara area. Some of the stones tipped at odd angles or showed signs of erosion and cracking. Others were obscured by fallen leaves.
But my eyes were quickly drawn to a group of dark figures standing in a rough circle. They shifted, already aware of our sudden appearance.
Jimmie drew his Apollo-blessed sword, flooding the immediate area with sunlight. The vampires howled and fell back. I could hear the skin on the closest ones sizzling.
Only one of them stayed right where he was, seemingly unaffected by the sunlight, eying it with a kind of detached indifference.
He looked like an attempt to replicate Bela Lugosi’s Dracula, but I couldn’t see his magic signature clearly. I knew one thing, though—he couldn’t really be a vampire if he could ignore sunlight so easily. But why would real vampires put up with such a poser?
Elatha was there, too—shiny, golden, and equally impervious to sunlight. Considering he was a Formorian, not a vampire, I wasn’t surprised by that. His Formorian companions—the three purple fog women and two archers who appeared to have human bodies and goat heads—were likewise unimpressed by sunlight. But this time, Elatha couldn’t blind us with his own radiance without hurting his vampire allies.
Khalid shot at the former Formorian king, presumably aiming for the neck just above the armor level, but Elatha dodged, and the arrow merely grazed him.
Lucas charged, did an improbable looking handstand, and kicked one of the archers in the head. I thought I remembered that being called something like scorpion kick. The archer reeled backward. His comrade tried to shoot, but Lucas was too close and managed to grab the arrow in midair. I hadn’t gotten used to his speed, but I couldn’t deny that it came in handy.
Umbra lunged forward, dagger raised. Its surface glowed with something I assumed was poisonous to Formorians. Moving like a shadowy whirlwind, she adroitly scratched both archers, who made some kind of goat sound as they fell. The black-robed women, however, disappeared into their purple fog. Umbra slowed, trying to get a glimpse of them so that she could aim.
“Dracula” raised his arms, and I saw a kind of gray magic flowing from him—the soul-sucking kind. I shuddered despite myself, as it reached toward us, but unfortunately for him, it didn’t work as well in direct sunlight. The force grew paler the closer it got to the glow of Jimmie’s sword.
I tossed holy water in his direction—a waste, probably, but I had to be sure. When the water hit him, he flickered slightly but seemed to not even notice the attack.
“An illusion,” said Jimmie as he advanced slowly, his sword thrust out in front of him.
I noticed that “Dracula” looked a little fuzzy around the edges. Was that another sign of a illusion? Either way, I moved forward, stake in my right hand, small hammer in my left. Based on the magic radiating from him, some real person—or thing—was behind that illusion. Whoever or whatever it was probably wouldn’t like a stake through the heart.
The vampires shouted or hissed at us from a safe distance, their voices merging with the wind to create the impression of a much greater force. But as long as Jimmie’s blade shined, they dared not get too close.
Elatha was another matter entirely. With one swing of his golden sword, he came close to slicing Umbra’s head off. With another, he forced Lucas to fall back. With both of them off balance, he charged in Jimmie’s direction.
Unlike the others, Jimmie and I couldn’t match the faerie speed of someone like Elatha. Worse, Elatha seemed like a better swordsman than Jimmie, as well as having greater physical strength. His huge sword clanged down on Jimmie’s with such force that it pulled the Apollo-blessed blade out of Jimmie’s hands. By the time it thudded to the ground, the sunlight had faded. A vampire battle cry shook the graveyard, even as Elatha maneuvered to strike a killing blow.
At that moment, Elatha and the vampires were both distracted by the appearance of a faintly glowing figure. Obviously, he had magic, but what kind? It was brighter and gentler than the gray foulness of “Dracula,” more warm than all of Elatha’s gold.
As the figure got closer, I realized it was Antonio. But what could have revived him so completely?
I tried to use my magic perceptions as best I could. The curse remained within him, but now a light force struggled against his darkness, clashing so violently inside him that I wondered how he could stay standing.
I tried to look into his eyes, but I saw nothing there. It was like looking through the windows of a vacant store and seeing only shadow and empty shelves within. But if there was nothing inside Antonio, why was he moving so purposefully toward us at such great speed?
Was he here to save us or to destroy us? His pale, expressionless face provided no clue. Between the moonlight and his own glow, he somehow managed to look simultaneously angelic and deadly.
“Dracula” gave him a toothy smile. “Brother!” he said.
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“North of Midnight” takes place in the Spell Weaver universe. Want to find out more about the series?
Very tense, Bill!