Chapter 2
Chapter
“True black is the absence of light,” Tomas Smolnycki told his brothers, Mataias and Lojos. “Technically, it isn’t a color.”
Mataias gave an exaggerated sigh. “At least you aren’t lecturing us on saving the rainforest and all its inhabitants.”
“That’s coming,” Lojos warned. “You know how he is.”
The three were triplets. Tomas and Lojos nearly always had opposite points of view, and Mataias was the peacemaker.
Down through the centuries, their discussions had become habit more than anything else.
By taking different sides of an argument, they were able to look at situations completely rather than just one-sidedly.
They always gave input on every subject to one another.
Many times, throughout the centuries, those varying points of view had saved their lives.
“I find, as the years go by,” Tomas said, “that the two of you are becoming more contrary than ever. And perhaps you’re losing your faculties. Slipping just a bit.”
“It makes no sense that, as Carpathian hunters who have lost the ability to see color, we see gray and not black, if black is the absence of color,” Lojos said.
“He does have a point, Tomas,” Mataias pointed out. “We do not have the side of our souls that provides light. We are wholly dark and without color or emotion other than remembered, so how is it we see in gray rather than in black?”
Tomas heaved a sigh. “Seriously? Because we see in gray versus black doesn’t negate the fact that black isn’t truly a color. It’s the absence of light.”
“So you say,” Lojos said.
“It’s a science-based fact. I didn’t just make it up,” Tomas said.
“Everything with you is supposedly science based,” Lojos protested.
“How many times, over the centuries we’ve been alive, has science proven itself wrong?
Everyone is told one thing as absolute fact, and then a century later someone disproves that theory, because it turns out it wasn’t a fact after all. It was a theory.”
Tomas paused in his argument to take a slow, careful scan of the dark forest around them.
We’re being stalked. He used the telepathic communication the three brothers had used for centuries.
Three in the trees ahead. Three coming up behind us.
Three in root systems of the trees to our left and right.
He continued their conversation in a mild, even tone. “You probably are still going to give me your ridiculous theory on why the earth is flat, not round.”
It isn’t Justice. Mataias named the beast they hunted.
He wasn’t quite vampire. At least as far as they could ascertain.
He was more. Much more dangerous than a vampire—or a Carpathian hunter.
Justice had been one of the legendary ancients, the one about which stories were handed down through the centuries.
“It wasn’t my ridiculous theory,” Lojos objected aloud, not giving away the fact that they knew they were being hunted. “I merely told you about it.”
Do you think it is possible Justice recruited the undead to stop us? Lojos asked his brothers, staying to the telepathic means of communication when asking pertinent questions. He knows we’re on his trail, and he knows we won’t stop until he is dead—or we are.
“You did defend it,” Mataias contributed.
We don’t yet know what he’s capable of, Tomas answered. I wouldn’t think he would have had the time. Nicu went to warn the prince and to help guard him, but we set out immediately after Justice. But again, we don’t know his full capabilities.
Tomas was several steps ahead of his brothers, taking the lead, which he normally did when they were hunting the undead. He was the bait. A man wrapped up in his philosophical discussion and seemingly unaware of his surroundings. Tomas always looked the part of a scholar when he became the bait.
The triplets wore their chestnut-colored hair long and pulled back at the nape of their necks.
All three had peculiar aquamarine-colored eyes.
Tomas had teardrop-shaped scarring from the edge of his hairline to his jaw on his right side.
Sometimes, like now, when he wanted to lull his opponents into a false sense of security, he wore black-framed glasses to enhance the first impression of being an easy target.
The three in the tree roots are beginning to grow restless. They haven’t gotten the command from their master to attack, but they won’t be able to hold much longer, Mataias warned.
Tomas gave a fleeting thought to the possibility that Justice had turned vampire and had recruited these lesser vampires. He had no doubt that when Justice turned, he wouldn’t go through the disorienting stage most Carpathians did when first turning.
The brothers had hunted the vampire for so many centuries it seemed like child’s play to them.
In the world of Carpathians, they had a certain reputation, but all three knew from their vast experience that battling vampires was a dangerous business.
Not that they thought about the danger. It was their job.
They gave little thought to wounds, mortal or otherwise.
They were Carpathians, ancient hunters of the vampire.
Throughout the long centuries, even their prey had changed, developing the ability to band together and fight as a unit.
That hadn’t changed the ultimate goal for the hunters—keeping others safe from the undead.
It did, however, change strategies. They learned from each battle.
“I wasn’t defending such a ludicrous theory, I was merely informing you so you had ideas to make your head explode,” Lojos informed his brothers. “We’ve traveled the world numerous times, and we’ve never fallen off the edge.”
“We’ve never even come to an edge,” Mataias said. “Seriously, Lojos, how would you ever endorse such an idiotic theory?”
Tomas didn’t look skyward, but he began to build a storm, the dark clouds drifting across the sky, slowly blotting out the stars and moon. In a few of the darker clouds, veins of lightning sparked jagged lines, coloring the dark gray with a lighter shade.
“Are you going to deliberately misunderstand me, adding to the discussion on the world being round or flat? There are numerous theories. If Tomas wants to play the part of the mad scientist, then I think he should be aware of every theory before he decides which one he ascribes to.”
The earth is shuddering. Those attempting to conceal themselves in the roots are poisoning the ground, Lojos warned the others.
Perhaps it is best to draw them out. I had hoped to wait until they are surrounding us completely and we know exactly where their master is, Tomas replied.
You do like things easy, Mataias said.
As easy and as efficient as possible, Tomas agreed.
He deliberately allowed his hand to brush against the thorny bark of one of the tall kapok trees.
The spines, or conical thorns, gave the giant tree a menacing appearance.
It was also perfect to feign cutting one’s hand carelessly as many visitors to the rainforest did.
A Carpathian wouldn’t have gotten cut, but if he did, he would have closed the wound immediately.
Tomas had assumed the role of a professor, one he was quite familiar with.
Swearing, he brought his injured palm to his mouth and then shook it as if it stung.
As he did, he flung tiny droplets of blood into the air.
Improbably, at that precise moment, a breeze seemed to drop through the canopy, setting off several small eddies of leaves and twigs on the forest floor.
At the same time, that slight wind dispersed the drops of blood throughout the air.
The droplets appeared like tiny rubies glittering in the weird streak of light that shone through the canopy.
Mataias kept his hand close to his chest as he manipulated the still air, producing the slight breeze that would send his brother’s ancient Carpathian blood straight to the concealed vampires.
No vampire, not even a master, could resist the lure of ancient blood.
He had stepped in front of Tomas, right into the pathway of the three vampires concealed just ahead of them, ready to spring their ambush.
Lojos paused for a moment, bending down on the pretext of tying his boot, putting his body right in the middle of the three trees whose root systems housed the eager vampires.
Deliberately, he didn’t look at the jutting fins of roots, rather fussed over meticulously tying the cords on his boot as if to tighten them.
Tomas dropped back from his brothers, putting his hand to his mouth as if the stinging wound could be soothed that way. In truth, his healing saliva closed the tiny laceration. He stood swaying a little, looking around him at the trees and shrubs, studiously avoiding looking behind him.
Evil had a smell. A presence. The undead weren’t simply pure evil; they were abominations.
Nature shrank from contact with them. Their poisonous touch caused every living thing to wither and die.
The ground groaned and trembled when their feet touched it.
Trees split in two. The leaves and fronds on brush and fern turned black and broke apart.
The undead delighted in killing. It mattered little if it was plants, wildlife or human.
They lived for cruel torture and the destruction of all living things.
Movement in the roots. The three are emerging, Tomas warned Lojos. I still haven’t located their master.
Tomas, like his brothers, was pragmatic about not always knowing exactly what they were up against—or who.
It mattered little. Over the centuries, they had been forced to battle and dispose of friends, and even family.
Cousins. They had learned from experience that vampires could not be recovered.
The Carpathian they once had been was long gone—dead to their world.
It was only an evil entity left behind in a rotting body.