Chapter 40 - Rio

I leave Alex to guard Astrid's body, making my way back to the grand hall to see Valentina for myself. Sure enough, she sits curled up, head between her knees, in the middle of the enchanted circle, no black shroud in sight. As her eyes lift up to me, I feel the disappointment of staring back at her dark eyes. How did the tides turn so quickly that I would feel disappointment at not having the First Son in my home?

The three mages stand ready at either sides of the circle, with Bianca joining them, her arms crossed, chewing on her lower lip anxiously. Kobe isn't too far behind while Ganzorig peeks out of a curtain, watching the heavy showers outside.

Demi, with a tablet in hand, walks up to me.

"Where is he?" I ask.

She taps around on her tablet, her eyes dart around the screen searching for answers.

"I don't know," she responds. "The internet is unusually quiet."

"That's worrying." I realize the irony in my statement. "How's the vampiress?"

"We fed her a little, enough to keep her awake."

"Feed her more."

At the sound of this, Valentina's eyes perk up. All three mages turn to look at me. Even Bianca, at the far end of the room, breaks away from her serious contemplation.

"Are you sure?" Demi asks.

"Yes," is my absolute answer. "Better we have him here than Goddess knows where."

"I agree," Bianca utters, the White Wolf with a vendetta of her own. "I'm itching to fight the bastard."

Demi sighs but nods and follows my order.

The tension in the air is palpable of the risk I propose to take. The three mages eye me displeasingly, the fiery Helena at the forefront of their disapproval. As Demi approaches the enchanted circle with a blood bag, Helena steps in front of her. My Delta looks at me and I give her a reassuring nod.

"This is foolish," Helena remarks at me, but stands down and lets Demi pass.

Demi tosses the bag in. We watch silently as the plastic rolls against the marble floor around the runes, landing five feet away from Valentina. She weakly crawls towards it, but snatches it with more gusto and devours the blood hungrily. As she flickers her gaze open, the chocolate warmth of her irises returns.

"Do you feel...him?" Bianca asks her.

A few seconds pass and she shakes her head slowly.

"I don't..."

If the air could shift in this dark and closed room, it does so, pulling every molecule with it and every one of us feels it. Those of us who have seen Er first hand take on an immediate defensive stance, while the others who have yet to meet him tremble with anticipation.

All three mages begin to chant in unison, words from the Ancient Greek dialect. I sense an aural shift raise itself around the borders of the enchanted circle when black smoke rises from Valentina's skin. No sooner do the mages finish their mystical chant than does the smoke instantly puff out to reveal the invisible spherical barrier keeping Valentina within the protective circle.

The smoke clears to reveal porcelain skin turned a shade of sickly grey. Valentina's black-and-white hair flutters about her in a wild and unruly fashion as her devilish black eyes observe her surroundings. She takes a deep breath in as we hear the sound of the many voices of the First Son wheezing through her inhale. She reaches a hand out to touch the invisible barrier and a blue spark zaps it away.

"Is this how you welcome all your guests?" Er asks.

"You are not our guest," I reply, pacing around the circle.

"So, you have brought upon your doom of your own free will?"

"I wouldn't get ahead of myself if I were you." I gesture to the enchanted circle and the curtained windows. "Look around you. One false move and we will destroy your only host in Mesaniskia. You will not find another vampire on Lycan land."

Valentina chuckles and glares pointedly at Bianca.

"You would really let them destroy this body, White Wolf?"

Bianca grits her teeth, the outline of her jaw muscle apparent in her quiet determination.

"If it comes down to that, so be it," she responds, though the dim light of her green eyes is telling.

Er sighs, resting Valentina's face on his grey hands.

"Whatever shall I do? I was hoping you would make it easier on me—and you, of course—seeing as my mother has abandoned you pathetic little creatures."

A few curious eyes gaze my way and I shake my head focussing on what I have to do...what do I do? I look back into Valentina's black eyes and remember that she did not choose this and there are countless other vampires much the same way, in spite of the prejudice my people place upon the rogue hordes that we stave off. None of that has worked in our favor. They keep popping right back up. So, what is the use of our petty disputes?

The vampires are not our enemy. It is the God puppeteering them. And who knows how long that's been going on for based on the fact that Ganzorig mentioned he saw Er possess another vampire some 6 months ago. I must find out why.

"Er," I utter and notice the twitch above Valentina's stoic brow. "What happened to you after the war?"

"Er," the voices repeat quietly as Valentina's expression drops. "I...that's not...I am not Er anymore."

"What are you then?"

"The God of Death."

"Really? Do you usher dead souls into the afterlife?" I prod.

"No, I liberate the living from life and lead them to something beyond death. I manipulate death to give them an even greater gift, one that is superior to the mundane existence of merely living."

"Perhaps God of Gifts might be a more suitable title then."

Valentina's arms wave in one swift motion as black smoke bursts all around her. She lunges at me towards the edge of the invisible barrier and gets instantly zapped by the magic as the blue streaks grow all around the parts of her body in contact with the barrier.

"Do not mock me, boy!" Er roars without so much as wincing.

I stride over to a curtained window and reveal it wide open. The UV light, though muted from the storm outside, still manages to affect Er's host body as it goes up in a different kind of smoke than the black shroud surrounding Valentina's body. The many voices shriek. I cover the window back when Er is subdued enough to retreat from the barrier's edge.

"You are too weak to be a God," I scoff. "So, I'm going to ask again. What happened to you after the war?"

"Isn't it obvious that I died?"

"How did you come back?"

"I had been floating in a void of nothingness for years after I died," Er laments. "If only time had not stood in my way, I would have eradicated you all decades ago. But alas, things never really do go your way, do they? There's always some asterisk or footnote or terms and conditions to these things. And boy was there a giant asterisk at the end of my resurrection."

"Get to the point," I hiss.

"I believe it was the year 2000," Er continues, eyes rolled in exasperation. "The turn of the millennium, when someone, or something rather, pulled me out of that void. I wasn't told much. In fact, I wasn't told anything. I was just glad to exist once more even if that meant adapting without the thousands of years' worth of wealth I had accrued in my previous life. However, there was a beauty in the way things had changed. Everything was...freer. Yes, it was a struggle to get by at first, and the new technology was certainly amusing, but I felt the chains that bound me before had flitted away. I was no longer...Er."

"If you were so free, what made you change your course back to a century old vengeance?"

Er chuckles. "I never said I had a change of heart. Funny thing about resurrections is they usually come at a cost, you see. And the price I paid to gain all this power was time as my body chipped and decayed till I took on my final evolution. A God, able to connect my sires and minions with a snap of my fingers. I became like a phoenix reborn, rising from the ashes."

"To turn something into ash, you need fire. Who provided you with this fire?"

The glint in Er's eyes makes me uneasy.

"Ah, it all comes back to that giant asterisk at the end of my resurrection. The star, the fire, the Sun."

I find myself gasp at this unexpected information. My eyes immediately shift to Bianca, then to Ganzorig, who seems to be steeping in agitation.

"Impossible," I exclaim incredulously. "Why would the Sun help you and help us, too?"

"Goddess knows," Er shrugs. "They are just as bad, if not worse than me, conniving ethereal beings that they are. I shall like to go after them when I'm done here."

A growl unknowingly forms at the back of my throat. The sudden anxiety of having my mate still unconscious and in the ethereal realm bubbles over.

"Oh, that's right," Er taunts. "I forgot your mate has that golden eye. Where is she by the way?"

I look over to Bianca, eyeing me expectantly.

"She's still under," I reply, more to her than to Er.

"Well, you know what they say: don't go asking questions you don't want answers to." Er laughs menacingly.

From across the room, Ganzorig stomps forward, fists clenched tight.

"Liar!" he shouts.

Before anybody has a sense of Ganzorig's next step, Er catches on first as an angry fist launches inwards. The First Son swiftly takes a hold of his arm, pulling Ganzorig inwards as Valentina's smoky body filters outwards.

The mages spring immediately into action. With Ganzorig now inside the invisible barrier, Helena and Ionna begin to recite the spell to release him from the barrier with the help of Demi offering her hand to guide him out. Meanwhile, Souleymane blasts Er's smoky body with his rays of light. The smoke manages to dodge the rays well until a sleight of hand manoeuvre that causes a bit of Er to sizzle and burn.

Er tumbles out of mid-air, collapsing on the marble floor and clutching an arm that is healing fast. The being grunts and turns its attention towards Bianca.

"Chérie, give me the ring."

Er manipulates Valentina's voice to once again catch Bianca off-guard. But this time, Bianca's composure remains stronger than before.

"I won't give you the ring. Er."

An unholy shriek escapes Valentina's body as the First Son possessing it goes into a fury. Bianca stands her ground and does her best to fight off the smoky terror that is slashing at her, slicing her skin and shredding her clothes to find the daylight ring. Souleymane angles himself for an open shot, when I grab his arm and break his concentration.

"What are you doing, Rio?" he asks perturbed. "This may be our one and only shot of killing him."

"Don't," I tell him. "He will only jump into another body. We must find a way to trap him again."

"How?"

That's when I hear the faint clatter of something light and metallic hitting marble. In a chivalric attempt, Kobe launches himself forward to grab the ring and the black cloud follows him, dealing the same damage to my brother as it dealt to Bianca. Kobe's body curls up on the floor as he holds his clenched hand close to his chest.

In a matter of seconds, Bianca shifts into her white wolf and lunges at Er. She manages to knock the black cloud over with speed and precision, leaving Kobe groaning but safe with the daylight ring clutched in his hand.

As Demi finally manages to pull Ganzorig out of the barrier, I order the witches to stop their chanting. The barrier springs back up. I take this opportunity to think fast on my feet while Bianca's got Er distracted.

"Kobe!" I call to my brother, looking back at me with thin red slices across his face. "Toss it."

With all the effort left in his body, he slides the ring out onto the floor. I lunge forward to grab it, when the smoke starts to follow me. I immediately sprint back to the circle, keeping Er right by my tail, and when he's close enough, I step into the barrier, taking him along with me. He slashes a deep gash across my arm, but I surrender the ring. At least he's trapped, but I'm trapped along with him.

Er settles down his black body till the familiar figure of Valentina emerges once more. She places the red-gold ring onto a dainty finger and admires it.

"Bianca!" I call out to her at the far end of the hall. "Go to Astrid."

She gives me a quizzical look, but questions me no further. Though her white fur is stained in red, her wounds are healing up fast as she swiftly walks away. She turns back for a second, her green eyes vivid and wary.

"Save her," I tell her. "For me."

As soon as Bianca's gone and Demi locks the door after her, I look back at my sinister opponent, my cage mate.

Er flickers his black eyes at me and smiles.