The Vampire Gift 8: Shadows of Mist
E.M. Knight
Chapter One
Phillip
In the caves of the Forsaken Sisters.
I gasp and surge up, regaining consciousness.
My heart is pounding. Every beat pushes blood through my weakened body. I feel very thin, very frail. The vampire essence inside me is trying its damnedest to undo the damage that was done. But it’s an uphill battle. It will take a very long time before I feel whole again.
My vision clears after a moment. It takes an extra second for my memory to catch up and tell me where the hell I am.
But then I see three beautiful vampire faces before me, three of my own new fledglings, and everything comes rushing back.
I let out an inadvertent gasp. At that moment, all three of the fledglings rip around and pin me in place.
“What is this?” I hiss, fighting to get loose. Their strength astonishes me. They already have the might of fully-grown vampires. “Release me!”
I make a pathetic attempt to wrestle out of their grip. It’s futile. My own weakened state does me no favors.
The three vampires regard me with an odd serenity and give no reply. I am struck by something absolutely uncanny about them—they are each perfectly synchronized in their movements. From the delicate sips of air they take to the rhythm with which they blink. Hell, even—I concentrate to make sure I’m right—even their heartbeats are synchronized.
I growl and tense. The moment I do, the hands holding me pull away. I am free to move again.
“Thank you,” I say gruffly, making no effort to mask the sarcasm in my voice.
I push myself upright and try to stand. The moment I’m upright I wobble. I blink and try to fight it off. It’s embarrassing, pathetic. It makes me look weak.
Appearances are everything. So even if I do feel weak, I must never show it.
Concentrating to will the unsteadiness away, I finally manage to find my center of gravity.
“Well,” I say, under my breath, “that couldn’t have gone much worse.”
I take stock of my body. Apart from that all-encompassing, dangerous bit of lethargy, I am whole. The vampire essence inside me is struggling to help me regain my strength. Slowly, it’s doing its job—but the pace at which it operates does not sit well with me.
When I turn my attention back outward, I have to do a double take. The three vexing vampires have moved a good twenty feet away—and I hadn’t noticed it.
My eyes narrow into slits. “How much of my blood did you take?” I ask, in a low, dangerous voice.
“Only as much as was needed to fulfill Eleira’s promise to us,” a beautiful female voice sounds in my head.
The telepathic transmission is so unexpected that I take a sharp inward breath. The faces of my fledglings maintain those haunting, serene masks. I can’t help but feel the amusement in their eyes.
“Who are you?” I demand. “What does Eleira have to do with you? What promise did she make, and when?”
The gaze of the three new vampires shifts to contain something dangerously close to pity.
“Little vampire,” the voice comes again in my head, “if your Queen did not tell you, do not ask us to undermine that.”
I bristle at being called “little.” Anger surges through me.
“You know nothing of who I am,” I growl, taking a menacing step toward them. “You know nothing of what I can do.” I gesture around the space we’re in. “How do you think I got in here through the erected magical barriers?”
Laughter answers me. Again, it’s in my head. The fledglings do not betray any emotions on their faces. Not a single muscle moves.
Just as my anger is about to hit critical mass, I realize something—and that realization stops me dead in my tracks.
Each time I hear the voice—just like with the laughter—it comes not from one of them, but from all three.
My mind races with the implications. Who exactly did I transform? They move as one, they breathe as one… and they speak as one.
What sort of entity have I bestowed with the Dark Gift?
And how is it that they are able to speak in my head? The fledgling-maker bond ensures against exactly that sort of thing.
A solemn warning rips me from my thoughts:
Your brother is dying.
I curse. Goddammit, I’d forgotten all about Raul! Hell, maybe I’d already given him up for dead, following the possession by that spirit.
The three new vampires step out of the way to give me a clear path to him. Despite my hardened exterior, my stomach clenches when my gaze falls upon him.
He is face-down on the floor, in a thick puddle of his own blood. Every second that passes, more escapes from that damned wound. I have no idea what possessed him to slap the collar on me—but if it wasn’t for that, I would never have attacked him with the blade, and he would not be near-dead.
I shoot my vampire senses out at him to get a feel for just how little life he has left. I feel only the faintest hint of his vampiric essence.
He’s mere seconds away from certain death.
“So much for being immortal,” I mutter, angry at him for getting himself into such a compromising state.
“You restored us,” the combined voice of the three women rips in my head. “For that, we owe you some loyalty. We can save your brother, right now. But doing so will require sacrifice.”
I turn on them. The clock is ticking in the back of my mind, counting down the seconds to Raul’s demise.
Eleira will throttle me and throw me in chains if I return with the corpse of her lover.
“What sacrifice?” I hiss.
“You must feed your magic into him. Only with it will he survive.”
“What the hell are you talking about? Feed my magic into him? I’ve never heard such nonsense. What do you know about such things?”
Once again, I hear that gay, grating laughter. “Haven’t you figured it out yet? We three are witches—together the most powerful this world has ever seen!”
Suddenly, a great blue glow erupts from around the three of them, lighting up the whole room with the power of the sun. I cry out and throw an arm over my eyes—the light burns worse than anything I’ve ever experienced.
Thankfully, it only lasts a flicker of a moment. I grit my teeth and blink through the residual pain in my skull.
“It’s time to decide, Phillip,” they say.
“Goddamn you!” I cry out. “Can’t you speak normally, for once? I don’t want you in my head!”
“DECIDE!” The witches fire back. “We have no time!”
In desperation, I throw one more look at Raul. He is so feeble, so pathetic, so unlike what a vampire should be.
He is not worthy of standing by Eleira’s side. Only I am!
My eyes flare at the three witches. “No,” I growl, taking sinister pleasure in denying Raul life.
For half a second, I feel something akin to astonishment pass through my fledglings. I can’t put a finger on why or how I feel it—certainly not anything that’s passed on through faces, no flicker of emotion or anything like that.
Maybe it’s some sort of benefit of the link that exists between us.
“Then,” the witches solemnly say, “we will do it without you.”
And before I can react, they descend upon me, throwing an inverted weave of magic my way that I cannot deflect.
The moment it hits, darkness takes me, and I pass out.
Chapter Two
Phillip
In the caves of the Forsaken Sisters.
This time, my escape from darkness comes very, very slowly, like a shipwreck being raised out of the deep, black sea.
An all-encompassing grogginess consumes my whole body. I have the vague impression that I am bound. My head droops forward, my own neck unable to support the weight.
It takes an enormous amount of will to pry my eyes open, and then double that effort to make them focus on the scene before me.
We are still all in the chamber. My gaze runs down my body. I feel restraints around my ankles, my wrists, my abdomen, and shoulders.
My back is up against a wall. I look up and see two of the witches kneeling around Raul. He is still on the floor, but they have turned him over. One of them props his head up.