erupted, and the vampire blew apart in gobbets of golden illumination, sizzling gore, and a smell of decay so pungent Demascus gagged. Weren’t they supposed to turn to grave mist and slink away? He was pretty sure that was the case. But he’d touched something of his deeper power, accidentally, when he’d called the light. That undead wouldn’t be coming back in any fashion whatsoever.
The back splatter of radiance and burning flesh had caught the female vampire nearby. She screamed as smoking holes marred her previously flawless skin. Her scream bubbled to a sigh as she transformed into a pillar of mist. Ha! he thought, I knew it! Mist!
Thuds, scrapes of metal on stone, and Riltana’s curses echoed down the hallway from the living room, muted by the grave vapor. Demascus checked his instinct to plunge through the roiling bank to Riltana’s aid. Though she faced three all alone, he still hadn’t retrieved his best weapon! And what if the red-nailed vampire re-formed around him as he rushed through?
He flung open his bedroom door and dove for the long chest containing his sword. As he worked the latches, he heard Riltana scream in equal parts fury and pain. “Hold on!” he yelled, clicking the last latch open.
“What’re you doing back there, having a lie down?” came her muffled reply. He could tell by the hoarse timbre in her voice that she was desperate. Demascus snatched up his sword. The cross guard was an intricate affair of opposing styles, as if the smith had managed to forge two or three weapons into a single whole. Nearly as long as two regular blades laid end to end, it still felt light as a switch of hazel wood in his hands. The sword trembled, and for a moment he saw … Madri, the woman he’d killed!
Demascus opened his mouth in surprise. He wanted to tell her he was sorry for what his previous self had done, to explain that he wasn’t that person anymore.
But the image blurred away, leaving him alone.
A shattering crash broke his paralysis. He launched out of his room and down the hall, holding
A tangle of mist curled up and out of the hole in the ceiling. It could have been the scarlet-nailed vampire or the one Riltana had bested while he’d been gone, because the one wearing yellow had disappeared; only two foes remained.
One was the hulking genasi vampire wielding a hammer of black iron. The other was little more than a child, darting in and out of range of Riltana’s knife and whirling a short sword.
“Riltana, why’re there vampires in my home?”
She said, voice tight, “They’re just stray dogs. Followed me here.” Then she fended off a hissing attack from the smaller one. Riltana was dressed in the black leather and face mask she wore to hide her identity and provide protection while she acquired things that didn’t belong to her.
“So you’re filching from vampires now?” he asked.
Before Riltana could answer, the large one came at Demascus with a swiftness that belied its hulking frame. It’d probably been an earthsoul before undeath lightened its skin to a shade nearly as stark as the deva’s own. The hammer came around, scribing an arc that would connect with his head. He brought up his sword and deflected the strike, but the impact nearly ripped
The deva considered his options … which felt an awful lot like grasping at straws blowing in the wind. It was at times like these that he wished, more than ever, he had the artifact called the Whorl of Ioun. It was the key to recovering his true powers. For instance, he knew he could call forth divine radiance; he’d just blown the one in the hallway to tatters. But as he reached for that same divine brightness again, he found only a void. What the Hells?
“So,” he said instead, “Riltana, why don’t you just give back whatever you stole, and maybe they’ll leave?”
The windsoul shook her head and frowned. “Hey! I didn’t take anything! I just peeked at some artwork in their private gallery. Who knew they’d get so upset over a drop-in art critic?”
The small one hissed, “She’s a thief! She must die for her trespass.”
Riltana chose that moment to execute a pirouette, extending her sword high and steel-toed boot low. The vampire wisely ducked the sword, so the windsoul’s boot swept the little thing’s feet. Only its supernatural reflexes saved it from falling flat on its back.
Part of him wanted to chastise the windsoul for bringing the attack on herself, and by extension his home. But most of him was glad he had something to kill, to take his mind off … things. And if anything needs killing, he thought, it’s vampires. Killing
The big one whirled his hammer over his head, then changed the weapon’s trajectory mid-swing, again showing off immense strength. The hammer came straight down and caught Demascus by surprise, clipping his right shoulder. The pain was shattering.
Something woke to the agony, rising up from a hidden reserve of his soul. A scarlet sun rose over the horizon of his consciousness, and everything was different. He forgot about Riltana, about whether or not she’d taken something from these vampires, and about his own lack of culpability. He felt bathed in purpose. He wanted to move. To act. To slay.
He grinned at the hulking creature of the night before him. Of its own volition, one hand relinquished
Demascus laughed. With the casual ease of an executioner, he lopped the vampire’s head from its shoulders. The creature withered to impotent mist and dispersed. His glee redoubled, as if he’d downed a couple of fiery shots of whiskey and anticipated a couple more. The sound of heavenly horns sounded distantly in his mind.
He turned his gaze to the last visible foe. It had scuttled away from Riltana and clung like a spider to the living room ceiling at the lip of the shattered skylight. The thief had apparently missed its departure, because she was casting about for her foe behind the remnants of living room furnishings.
“Face me,” Demascus intoned, his voice resonant with power. He pointed
The vampire’s head swiveled all the way around to stare directly down at him. Its eyes sought to burrow into the deva’s mind. This time Demascus didn’t look away. The compulsion in the white-eyed stare broke on his mind like a straw of sugar fluff. This sniveling child-monster was a joke for someone like him-he was the Sword of the Gods!
He stared back at the vampire and said, “You should never have come here. You’ve sealed your fate.” He flicked the Veil of Wrath and Knowledge. Its parchment-pale length unfurled with a snap, and the far end wrapped around the vampire’s left foot. The small creature shrieked as Demascus yanked it off the ceiling. Its right arm snapped when it hit the ground at the deva’s feet. He stomped a boot down on the broken arm, riveting the creature in place. It was a child, in truth-a firesoul boy aged about thirteen winters-turned to undeath. He had become an abomination. He snarled and tried to scramble away, but Demascus just pressed harder. Surprise, quickly replaced by abject fear, washed across the creature’s face as it realized something more than the deva’s weight trapped it. Demascus was actively preventing it from turning into escaping mist with his stare alone.
“You see?” Demascus said. “I am fate’s agent. You can’t elude me. Because your thread ends now.” He dragged his sword through the creature’s body, releasing a pulse of the same light that illuminates the heavenly domains. The vampire burned to a human-shaped silhouette of ash in a heartbeat. No hint of grave vapor remained.
“Who’s next?” Demascus asked, and his gaze fixed on the only remaining person in the room.
The windsoul’s eyes widened. She raised a hand and said, “Hey! Wake up, idiot! Remember me? Your friend, Riltana, the friendly genasi?”
What was the windsoul going on about? Of course he knew who she … oh. The red glaze of murderous euphoria leaked away like steam off a too-hot mug of tea. With it went his momentary familiarity with a staggering suite of avenging prayers and assassin’s tricks. In the absence of his manic rapture, the room seemed duller, cluttered, and all too real. Is this how he normally lived in the world? And his shoulder still hurt where the vampire
