Frowning thoughtfully, Layla turned to Adrian. “Adrian? What do you think?”
“I like it, actually.” Adrian spoke, crossing his arms as he regarded them all, his Mediterranean-blue eyes thoughtful. “This is a well-fortified space, Layla, if Dusk can get the Revenants in the Thin Ways to protect it. Quinn?”
“Vampire Revenants are one of few creatures in the Twilight Realm that are wickedly impossible to best, no matter what kind of magic a person has.” Quindici answered as he watched Adrian. “Siren mind-magics, Master Vampire sways, Ephilohim abilities… Revenants resist all control. And they’re tremendously difficult to kill, because they like to amass in such ostentatious numbers. If you could get them to protect you… there is little that could combat that.”
“Good.” Dusk clapped his hands as a wave of sapphire-diamond light flowed through his artful hair and bright blue eyes. “So off to the Thin Ways, then?”
“I guess so.” Layla nodded, gesturing for him to take the lead. “Take us in, Mr. Sulu.”
Grinning at her quip, Dusk winked at Layla, then strode through the ornate crystal hall, leading them away from the diamond-pillar entrance. As Layla followed with Adrian and Quinn, she admired the hall’s opulence, finally seeing how it was both beautiful and functional at the same time. Heading to one side of the vast space, where Layla could see similar halls marching through the underground beyond, Dusk led them to a low side-vault beneath one towering balcony. Moving into a short sapphire tunnel, they came to a node of the Thin Ways, a perfectly circular sapphire room with countless vertical slits all around.
As Dusk gave a low rumble, the walls suddenly flared with blue light, King DuVir’s Crystal Dragon color sapphire also, just like Dusk’s. Facing the center of the node, Dusk lifted one hand, beginning to produce a vibration in his entire body as he moved around the space. Normally, he would have been scouting for a passage to get them to a destination, but this time, Layla felt him searching for the resonant imprint of Vampire Revenants. Before long, Dusk stopped, facing a particular slit and taking a deep breath. Glancing to Adrian, Layla, and Quinn, a wave of sapphire-diamond light flowed through Dusk’s hair and the Dragon-scales at his temples.
“I feel three strong Revenants down this passage, but they’re not aware of us yet.” Dusk spoke with no-nonsense now. “King DuVir’s construction of this space keeps their malevolence out with Crystal Dragon wards, but the moment I rumble this passage open, they’ll know we’re here and come to suck us dry. You all ready? I’m pretty certain I can imitate the harmonic frequency I used in the Thin Ways in Morocco to stall them fairly quickly, but it’s not for certain.”
“We’re ready.” Adrian spoke with a nod, a light of battle in his blue-green eyes as golden flecks flared in them. Deep inside, Layla could feel Adrian’s Bind light up as he roared power through her and her drakaina roared back. A bright synergy was already cascading between them, ready to use their powers in tandem for a fight. Beside them, Quinn was boiling with his own dark nimbus to their bright one; though it had a strangely red-copper edge to it that Layla had never seen before, as Quinn focused on the slit Dusk had chosen.
“Proceed.” Quinn spoke intently now, as if he could feel the Revenants down the passage.
“Then here we go, kiddos.” Dusk spoke with a wry smile. Taking a deep breath, he raised both hands, making a rumble that roared around the node gathering momentum, then went hurtling down the slit he’d selected. As Layla watched, the slits in the circular room all flooded away as the central one widened into a massive vaulted French Baroque hall like a catacomb, vivid blue sapphires glowing to light in niches all down its vast reaches.
But even as Dusk opened his chosen passage, Layla saw three dark voids of wrathful black smoke swirl down the hall, taking note of them. Three pairs of malevolent red eyes blistered into Layla as a screeching sound like nails raking down a blackboard assaulted her.
And then the Revenants were coming.
CHAPTER 8 – COMMAND
Raising a ring of gold-white fire against the three Vampire Revenants hurtling down the hall towards them, Layla and Adrian cast up a barrier around themselves and Dusk as Quinn spread his dark nimbus around them all. They’d raised their magics not a moment too soon, as the three smoke-dark creatures swirled to a halt just beyond their ring, black tentacles shooting out and writhing like eels as they tried to find a way in past the barrier. But Quinn was a Master Vampire, adept at fighting his kind, and Layla and Adrian had command of their all-magic powers. A unison strike of their hands produced a barrier of lightning crackling above to fend off the Revenant’s black tentacles, and with a deafening shriek, they backed off, liking lightning even less than fire. Standing inside the group’s protection, Dusk took a deep breath.
Then raised his hands to the Revenants – producing chiming harmonics from his entire body, amplifying and focusing them through his palms.
“Hear me, you bad mama jamas.” Layla heard Dusk murmur as he began to produce his music. “C’mon. Listen and calm the fuck down.”
As Layla listened to Dusk’s music, she shuddered to her very fundament – nearly letting her barrier with Adrian drop, Dusk’s magic was so lovely. Hauntingly beautiful, like all the crystals in the earth had decided to produce a symphony, those tones surged through Layla’s entire body; and as she listened to Dusk vary them in pitch and intensity, she suddenly heard the songs of the sea in them also. Drawing on Reginald and Fury’s powers now through the Bind, Dusk created such a stunning combination of Crystal Dragon and Siren magic that Layla felt her breath halt, her barrier diminishing as Adrian and even Quinn stood astonished now by that miraculous sound.
But it must have been what Dusk had used to soothe the Vampire Revenants near Wahdi Atlamenta; a tremendously potent combination of his, Reginald’s, and Fury’s magic that calmed not only the body and emotions, but soothed and relaxed the mind as well. Even as Layla watched, the Vampire Revenants ceased digging at the barrier with their black smoke claws. Becoming perfectly still, they pulsed for a moment as if confused by what they were hearing.
And then they began to sway, curling and roiling like a black ocean beneath a sunny day.
“Gods of the Blood!” Quinn breathed as Dusk lowered his hands, everyone watching the three Revenants boil slowly now like an underwater sea. “You’ve got them becalmed!”
“This is what happened in the Thin Ways in Mauritania,” Dusk noted as he watched the Revenants intently. “While we were fighting some, I suddenly started manifesting Reginald and Fury’s harmonics through my magic and the Revenants began to pay attention to that combination of sounds. We were able to calm groups like this as we went. A few stronger ones got aggressive again, but I just used this harmonic and soothed them enough to let us by.”
“Fascinating.” Quinn spoke again as he narrowed his onyx eyes on the black smoke creatures, as if thinking deeply about the possibility of Dusk’s magic.
“But they still want to kill us. Deeply.” Adrian observed as he and Layla stepped up beside Dusk. Adrian’s statement was confirmed as one of the Revenants suddenly looked at Layla and she felt its god-awful mind thrust against hers. Malevolence was in those dark red eyes; hate and wrath and violence. With a shudder, Layla felt stripped bare before those terrible thoughts.
Though she realized they weren’t trying to rip her apart.
“They’re still hateful, but they’re not trying to dig into my mind like they usually do.” Layla commented, wondering at it. The first time she’d encountered Revenants, Rhennic had had to cover her eyes so she wouldn’t be rolled by their formidable mind-powers, as deadly as a regular Vampire or Siren but vastly more so because of their wrathful insanity. Revenants killed by terrifying their prey; ensnaring their minds and sucking not just their blood and energy, but their fear and terror also until they were helpless.
A very bad way to die.
“No, they’re paused.” Quinn murmured now as they continued facing the Revenants across the diminishing ring of fire. Above, Adrian and Layla’s lightning-dome had flickered out, but the Revenants were still not trying to get in, their black tentacles merely roiling along the passage’s floor. Quinn, however, had not allowed his dark nimbus to falter, as if he didn’t trust his kind. “Your harmonic has caused them to be put in a kind of trance, where they’re listening rather than attacking, Dusk.”
Watching the Revenants intently, Quinn suddenly did something to his nimbus of dark energy. As it flared a bright copper-red, sparking all through its smoky darkness, Layla both saw and felt it begin to vibrate – producing the same harmonic Dusk had created from Siren and Crystal Dragon magic. It was like a trick of mimicry as Quinn’s dark aura began to produce those soothing earth-tones, yet so profoundly close that Layla could hardly tell the difference. The tones Dusk had produced had been flowing and clarion, and though Quinn’s were darker, they were just as clear and compelling. Quinn’s music flowed all around them now via his black nimbus, both more angelic and also more demonic than Dusk’s, but it was holding the Revenant’s attention. As Layla reeled, feeling that dark power inundate her, Adrian lifted his eyebrows at Quinn.
Even Dusk glancing over, frowning deeply.
