Creating a gigantic tornado, previously completely beyond my ability, was now as easy as raising a basic skeleton from a corpse. I didn’t understand how I was doing it; I just knew on an instinctive level how to create a monster of a tornado.
With a flick of the Dragon Sword blade, a tremendous howl roared through the interior of the ship. A funnel of madly spinning air blasted down the stairs, immediately stemming the flow of water and filling the remaining space with air. The pressure of the howling tornado was incredible. Even with the kusarigama chain securing me to the post, I could feel its force tugging at my body like the hands of a greedy Jotunn. Without being secured like we were, everyone in here would be flying around and smashed to bloody piles of meat pulp in seconds.
It was difficult to breathe but at least it was air coming through our mouths and noses into our lungs and not seawater. With everything taken care of, I closed my eyes and flung part of my spirit into the kraken and another segment into Talon, who was soaring high above the storm. Viewing the world simultaneously through the harpy’s eyes and the kraken’s was quite a trip, but I had long since learned to handle the mentally taxing task of viewing completely different things simultaneously.
Using the two undead creatures, I guided the ship underwater, navigating out of the swirling madness of the super-storm. Once we’d gotten out of it and back into calmer weather, I released the ship and allowed it to float to the surface. After it surfaced, everyone breathed out a sigh of relief, but I held up a hand to silence them before anyone said anything. We weren’t off the hook just yet.
“I have to get the water out of here!” I said. “Hold tight!”
Rami-Xayon was finally coming to, but she was groggy and disoriented, so I used the power of her blood to create another tornado. This tornado was a regular one, sucking air rather than pumping it in, and I used it to suck all of the water out of the ship. Then, and only then, I unwrapped the kusarigama chain, freeing myself and Rami-Xayon. Everyone else was still secured to the pillars by spider silk threads, so I went around and cut them all free.
They were groggy and weak, for they’d all taken a beating from the forces of the tornado and had struggled to breathe. None were injured, though, but they needed rest. Now that we were out of danger, they could recuperate. One of them, however, was feeling far weaker and more drained than the others.
“What happened back there?” Rami-Xayon groaned. Her face looked deathly pale, and she couldn’t stand upright. “The last thing I remember … was falling from the rigging … then … nothing … until I woke up. But I dreamed a terrible dream … that a vampire … was draining my blood.”
I flashed her a guilty smile. “I’ll explain later, but let’s get you to a bunk where you can lie down and rest.”
“That would be good,” she murmured, still looking terribly disoriented and confused.
I picked her up and carried her to one of the cabins, where I laid her down on a bed so she could sleep and recover. When I turned to leave the cabin, however, I saw Isu standing in the doorway. She stared at me, an eerie smile on her luscious lips and a dark gleam in her eyes.
“I saw what you did back there with the tornado,” she said. “As powerful a god as you are, Vance, only the Wind Goddess could create a tornado like that. Yet the whole time we were underwater, she was unconscious. There’s only one way you could have achieved what you did … you have tasted Blood magic, haven’t you?”
“It was the only way to create a strong enough tornado to prevent us all from drowning. I did what I had to do,” I said.
“And you liked it, didn’t you?” she whispered, shifting her hourglass-shaped figure seductively.
I nodded slowly. “Taking Rami-Xayon’s power like that was a rush like nothing else,” I admitted. “But I only did it because it was that, or death for all of us. As incredible as it felt, I’ll never do it again. I hate to say it, but now, on some level, I understand the Blood God and his insatiable appetite for blood, especially the blood of gods and goddesses. And now I have an even greater understanding of why he has to be stopped at all costs.”
“The rush of power, taken from someone else’s blood, is terribly addictive,” Isu said. “And now, after tasting it, I’m sure you can see just how easily it can turn men into monsters. Is it any wonder that your uncle Rodrick, the Warlock, and Elandriel became such evil creatures after experiencing such power?”
“I can see how it turned them into what they became,” I said, “but there was greed and evil within all of them anyway. The Blood magic only fed and amplified what was already there.”
“Indeed,” she said. “But beware, Vance … once you have tasted this forbidden fruit, its flavor will always linger somewhere at the back of your throat. And that flavor will always beg for more. Always.”
She chuckled softly and humorlessly. For a few seconds, a glow entered her eyes, and she looked like the powerful Death goddess who’d
