“I can try.” Dusk blinked as he glanced to Layla and Adrian, watching the interaction intently as their ring of fire dwindled out. Beside them, Quindici was catching on to Dusk’s second set of harmonics and Layla felt him suddenly get it right, his black aura pulsing and then humming with that ultra-low universal tone. It was still Quinn’s own angelic-demonic version of Dusk’s sounds, but it was accurate enough that all three Revenants glanced to Quinn in unison, swirling far closer to human-form than ever before. Reaching out with one black smoke hand, Gold-Eyes stared intently at Quinn’s aura as it shimmered a bright fire-red, before looking back to Dusk.
We sense the power within your group.It spoke once more, nodding to its fellows as if speaking for them also.We have been prisoners to the Illuminate One’s dominance for too long, and are in agreement. We will do your task. But in order to do so, we must strike a bargain.
“Be careful enacting bargains with my kind.” Quinn spoke suddenly as he glanced at Dusk. “Vampires are infamous for twisting bargains in ways you don’t expect.”
So we are.Gold-Eyes breathed through their minds again, and Layla saw it almost smile at Quinn with cold calculation.But this bargain is to your benefit. My kin and I are grateful you have liberated us, and if you could liberate my fellows and set us all free of the Illuminate One’s hold upon us, we would all be grateful. Grateful enough… to give you the Treasure he once left with us. Which you might find useful.
“What’s the catch?” Quinn responded now, staring at the Revenant with cold precision.
There is none.The Revenant spoke to Quinn with that small smile again.Simply liberate thirty of my people now to prove that you can, and promise me you will do the rest when your war against the Illuminate One is finished. Liberate us, and we will do your task, guarding your people when the time comes against your foe. And we shall give you his Treasure… as a bonus against our mutual enemy.
“Sounds like a bargain to me.” Dusk glanced at Adrian and Layla, then Quinn. “Quinn?”
“It wants all the Vampire Revenants in the Thin Ways to be free once this fight with Hunter is over,” Quinn spoke icily now as he stared the creature down. “My Vampire High Council in Rome estimate there are over five thousand Revenants in the Ways, though plenty more haunt catacombs and ancient undergrounds throughout the rest of the earth. It wants all its brethren free. I get the feeling they’d not be contained to these passages once they’re liberated from Hunter’s sways.”
Indeed.Gold-Eyes breathed back as Layla heard a rolling chuckle come from it, so touchable it rippled over her skin like black silk at midnight.The bastard of magic speaks true. My people would be free from the Illuminate One, to roam the world after our bargain is finished. But there are not so many of us as you suppose… plenty of my lesser kin down here simply went mad over time, and were never chained to the Illuminate One’s desires. But you would gain protection from your foe in your hour of need. And his Treasure… which must be of great worth, since he has had us guard it for so very long.
“Speaking of, what is this treasure?” Adrian spoke up then, drawing the creature’s attention. “What is it that Hunter wants protected so very badly?”
Come and see.The Revenant chuckled again as its gold-white gaze swept them.Come and see, and liberate thirty of my kin on our way as a show of goodwill… and then you may decide if our bargain is fully struck.
Glancing at Dusk and Adrian, Quinn shook his head. “I don’t like this, Adrian. Setting even a few hundred Vampire Revenants loose all over the world with their evil minds clear to cause their own mayhem is worse than you could ever know. My people have close bonds upon Revenants for a reason – even for us, they are vastly difficult to control or oppose.”
“Do you have a better idea if this fight with Hunter goes bad, Quinn?” Adrian spoke levelly, watching Quinn with a deep intensity in his aqua-blue eyes. Setting his jaw, Quinn looked to the Revenant, which held his gaze calmly with its cronies. Heaving a hard sigh and running a hand through his russet hair, Quinn showed a deep humanity as he set his long hands to his hips.
“No. I have no better ideas.” He spoke coldly, before looking to Dusk. “Let us go see this Treasure. I have a decent command of your soothing and liberating tones now, Dusk, and can help free thirty of them from Hunter’s bonds as we travel. Let’s find out if this bargain is really worth it.”
“And off we go.” Dusk spoke as he looked at Adrian and Layla and they nodded. Facing the Revenant, Dusk addressed it. “Take us to Hunter’s Treasure and we’ll wake your thirty. And then we’ll decide if a bargain is struck.”
With a dire nod, Gold-Eyes seemed to smile. And then swirled out to writhing black smoke as it rushed up the vaulted blue hallway with its fellows.
Beckoning for the Bind to follow.
CHAPTER 9 – BARGAIN
As Layla and her men followed the Vampire Revenant Gold-Eyes through the catacombs of the Thin Ways, Layla began to doubt. Taking a vastly meandering path through the Ways, Gold-Eyes led them through sapphire halls, then citrine yellow ones, then finally descending down into ancient ruby red deeps barely brighter than the blackness around them, finding pods of its fellows along the way. With Quinn’s help, Dusk managed to liberate those groups of Revenants with his universe-tone. But after a few hours of continuing through the Ways, a dark worry began to devour Layla’s heart, that Gold-Eyes was leading them to the strongest of its kin to liberate.
As she felt completely lost now in the bowels of the earth.
Her unease wasn’t just coming from her as they continued through a hall that was nothing but a rough cave far beneath the earth, with pillars of ghostly white crystals to light their way. Dusk and Adrian were becoming as doubtful as she, their unrest palpable as they moved through the cavern with an entourage of thirty Revenants now, freed from Hunter’s mind-sways just like they’d bargained. Though those masses of seething black smoke were quiet as they moved at Layla’s back, she couldn’t help but shiver constantly, the hairs on her body standing up straight as her drakaina coiled at high alertness in her veins. Even Quinn was unnerved, walking with a spine-straight rigidity as his dark smoke aura intensified around them again and again with fire-bright sparks.
Ready to protect them if something went wrong.
But assuming more of his man-shape with every Revenant they liberated, Gold-Eyes held their bargain, now looking like a tall warrior of black smoke carrying a vicious spear even taller than he. He might even have been an Archangel once, he was so tall – and as Layla had that thought, he looked over, his gold-white eyes bright upon her as if reading her thoughts. As they swirled along the rough passage, Layla could feel the might of his growing army, and understood that the Bind were safe unless they refused to participate in Gold-Eyes’ deal. The Revenants’ presence was like a spider’s web blowing through her mind; so gossamer they were almost not there, but stronger than cabled steel when touched. Layla didn’t know Vampire magic, but she could feel the might of what was trailing along behind them. She had a moment to wonder if Gold-Eyes was deliberately leading them to their doom somewhere.
When he stopped moving suddenly and pointed his long smoke-spear at an alcove.
As they stopped before the alcove, Layla saw the walls transitioned here from a dark grey granite to pure white crystals like those acting as lights along the walls. The entire alcove before them was devoured by those crystals, jutting out in columnar perfection every which way like an impenetrable maze. Layla could barely make out a slit in the wall beneath all that beautiful mess, and Dusk gave a whistle as he moved forward. Smoothing his palm over the columnar crystals barricading the wall, Dusk marveled at them before he spoke to Layla, Adrian, and Quinn.
“These crystals may simply look like giant selenite crystals, but they’re actually a selenite-diamond hybrid that only Crystal Dragons make.” Dusk spoke excitedly as he turned to them. “There are ancient records at the Crystal Plateau saying our ancestors used to make these; the strongest barrier against vibrational attack or physical intrusion one could fashion. My people lost the art; we can’t make these anymore. But it’s said they guard the oldest vaults of Dragon-treasure deep inside the Thin Ways. My Egyptian clan’s vaults are guarded by diamond pillars like beneath the Paris Hotel. But these… these are ancient. Like, hundreds of thousands of years, ancient.”
This passage was built by the Old Dragons, long ago. Gold-Eyes confirmed through their minds now with a sensation like a blowing shroud – its eyes bright as if it was as intrigued by this mystery as Dusk.It is whispered among the most ancient Vampires, that the Dragons came from an elder Lineage. They migrated to our Realm from a different one – a world they had destroyed by their in-fighting. Those Old Dragons built these crystal-marked caverns, securing their treasures from their long-ago wars. My people have scoured the Thin Ways since the Illuminate One bound us, yet have found only seven of these caverns in all the world.
“Those must have been the Dragons I saw in the friezes in the fractured realm ofVittria, where Hunter has his lair.” Layla blinked in astonishment at the Revenant’s tale. “That realm must have been theirs long ago – ancient Dragons that damaged their realm too badly from wars and then must have migrated here, founding our Dragon Lineages long ago.”
“So what do these vaults contain, that the Vittrians protected, and then Hunter?” Dusk asked now as he turned towards the Revenant. But with a conflicted swirl, Gold-Eyes lost his man-shape for a moment, before he returned.
We do not know.It hissed softly through their minds again as it indicated the blocked passage with its smoky spear.Vampires cannot penetrate this kind of crystal. Only the Illuminate One was able to find a harmonic that could move him through and place his Treasure inside with that of the ancients, before he bid us guard it. This is the place we protect for him; but we do not know what lies inside.
