Chapter 40
CHAPTER
FORTY
From a pocket dimension that opened above the trees, Erland looked down and studied the chaos on the ground, centered around the witch goddess’s power. The location called to him because the nexus of so many crossing planes felt like home. That and Ilu liked it there.
Her host, the human, Valentine, had been welcoming. Acceptance was something Erland had never known. Probably why he and Hafandi had bonded. She too had no place in her world. Like Ilu, who tried to convince herself she belonged.
Erland didn’t mind letting her think she could compete with him. So often, his opponents gave him too little to work with. But Ilu had been putting up a good fight for some time, making it difficult to get through her attempts to dissuade him from taking her human.
He looked over his shoulder and saw Hafandi sitting in her chair, looking through a window at another place in another time.
A sentimental creature, she wanted love, an emotion for which he had little patience.
He knew only hunger, pain, and need. Erland wanted only for the pain to ebb, for some respite from a constant void of nothingness.
The hunger never left. Until he ate someone new, absorbing their sordid life that meant little to anyone.
From deep inside himself, where he kept her contained, Ilu said, You won’t win. I won’t let you.
Ah, Ilu. I already have. You just don’t know it yet.
She went quiet, centered in the seat of his power, surrounded by nothingness.
But perhaps I can give you a companion if you’re not wanting to share dinner? He focused on Valentine, surrounded by death. An impressive human, notwithstanding her vulnerable body.
She stood in the back of the house with her dead, fighting against an enemy she would never defeat.
Time enough to make a stand, he thought, and eased through the portal leading into Midgard, the human realm.
No one noticed him as he skirted the crowd of brawling vampires and chaos agents and slipped through the magical protection around the house.
Nothing could keep out chaos when it wound its way through humanity’s pores.
He stared around him at a long table and chairs, at wooden floors and cream-colored walls. In this place, the feel of the divine was a power unlike that held by regular people. Magic lingered in the walls and in the floors. The scent of life and death and excitement burst on his tongue
He paused, eager to experience this new sensation.
“Um, hi. Who are you?”
He turned to see a pretty woman walking toward him, a confused expression on her face.
“I’m Bella.” She frowned. “Did Mr. Mormo say you could be here?”
Erland studied the woman who seemed less than human. Or perhaps more? “What are you?”
“Duh. I’m a gorgeous twenty-four-year-old. What are you?” She looked him over. “You’re kind of cute but a little young for me. Are you even old enough to drink?”
“Yes, I am.” He moved forward and latched onto her arm, prepared to drink her down in one smooth gulp.
“Gotcha.” She dragged him with her instead.
They moved through time and space into a realm devoid of life. It felt surprisingly like his last escape from an eternity of boredom, everything around him nothing but a dull gray. No sky, no ground, no vegetation. Just more of nothing.
He hated it.
The human crossed her arms over her chest and glared. “You dare come into my house and make demands? I don’t think so.” Her form shifted into that of an older woman with dark skin and a no-nonsense scowl. Her green eyes blazed with power.
“Ah, Hecate. That makes much more sense.”
“Why are you here, Erland? Why come to us?”
“Why, because I was invited.”
“By whom?”
“By me.” Erland’s new friend stepped into existence beside him.
Hecate sighed. “Hafandi, why would you do this?”
“Because it’s time others realized that there’s nothing wrong with what could be.
” The fourth Fate smiled, but the joy didn’t reach her eyes.
“None of you know what it’s like to exist without purpose, without want or acceptance.
But you will. And Erland will finally be able to give voice to the satisfaction we all strive to achieve. ”
Erland nodded, not really caring. He just wanted to eat.
“Would you do battle here? In Death’s realm?” Hecate shook her head. “You don’t belong here, Hafandi.”
“Neither do you,” Hafandi said quietly. “But my friend is hungry. Why don’t we wait for your Night Bloode to join us?”
“They can’t. Not here.”
Hafandi smiled. “But they could…”
Valentine felt the moment Hecate left. Apparently, Macy did too.
Macy and Duncan had arrived a little bit ago, along with the rest of the Night Bloode to protect Hecate’s crossroads—the real target of the Darkness that Comes.
“He wants to control death?” she asked Macy, forced to work with the witch instead of defending herself against Macy and her MEC friends, who all wanted nothing more than to throw Val, the necromancer, in jail.
“I have no idea. I just go where they tell me.” Macy shot a spell at an approaching group of draugrs trying to break through the wards at the back of the house. “But I sure hope we can wrap this up before daylight hits in a few hours. I’m getting tired.”
“Me too,” Val admitted, her hold on the dead draining. Without Ilu’s power to bolster her, she felt a lot weaker than normal.
Khent continued to fly overhead, fighting new titans—freaking titans—showing up while Orion and pregnant Kaia battled jotuns in the water.
“I had no idea Orion could become a giant,” she admitted.
“Well, don’t tell him he’s impressive or he’ll never shut up about it.” Macy cursed a group of vampires converging on Riley and Kraft, who were already fighting a group of contaminated people.
Those corrupted by the Darkness looked like zombies covered in tar, the chaos a black goo that smelled horrible. Like ozone and ripe garbage.
Fara remained inside, holed up with several of her brother’s animals and other sentient stones she was carving magical runes into, providing extra protection for the house.
Duncan raced to Macy’s side and leaned in for a kiss, a big smile on his handsome face.
“What’s that for?” she asked.
“This is grand, eh? A fight to the very end.” He paused, cocked his head, then darted away.
“That was…nice.” Val called up more dead, unable to tap into a few vampires her Night Bloode kin had ended. Khent was right. Vampires weren’t easy to grab, especially without Ilu’s power to sustain her.
Val could feel the energy left behind in the dead vrykolakas vampires littering the ground, but she couldn’t absorb it.
Duncan reappeared, yelling for Rolf, then left once more.
“That’s not good,” Macy said.
“What?” Val stumbled.
“You okay?” Macy helped her stand.
“I’m fine.” Val flushed. “Don’t even think about trying to take me in when this is done.”
Macy groaned. “I’m sorry, okay? I was always told that necromancers are evil. That you’re supposed to be behind bars. I’m coming to see I’m wrong. I won’t put you in jail for being a death walker.”
“Hmm. Death Walker. I like it. Much better than what we call our vampires. Of the Bloode is archaic.”
“’Fangers’ is cute. But ‘blood sucker’ is gross. So is ‘leech.’”
Rolf finished with two vampires and tossed them into the water, where a kraken grabbed them, broke them in pieces, then ate them.
Macy and Val watched, horrified.
“Remind me not to get on your sister’s bad side,” Val murmured.
Kaia saw them watching and waved. To Val, she looked like a beautiful, pregnant version of a Disney villain. One with glow-white hair, incredibly blue eyes, and the lower torso of an octopus. She floated in the water while Orion battled above her, keeping his precious mate safe.
Val loved that the Night Bloode cared for their loved ones. Even in this time of great stress, the soulless vampires kept their bonded partners free from harm.
“What do you think of Rolf’s new mate?” she asked Macy as the woman used bloode magic to crush a few draugrs.
“I—look out, Val,” Macy shouted and shoved her out of the way.
Too late.
Macy took a blow to the head, and the vampire who lunged at her knocked into Val and bit into her neck.
Khent screamed her name, but he was too late.
Val was drifting away, and so was Macy.
She watched through the veil of death as a ghostlike Khent set fire to everything in sight.
Val had always thought she’d know what to expect when she met her demise.
Death was a new beginning, not an ending.
But she’d miss Khent tremendously. She knew they couldn’t find an underworld together since her reaper had no soul.
After all her experience with death, Val still had no idea where vampires went when they left the world.
As a human, Val expected to see Hecate on her way to the afterlife.
Not a young man with voids for eyes. Or a woman who resembled Sylvara, Rolf’s valkyrie mate, staring at her with a smirk.