Carlotta and the Krius Scepter (Carlotta Series Book 1) (18 page)

32.
              
Destiny

I went straight for Peleus’ jugular. It was instinctive in vampire form and I wanted with all my heart and soul to drink this man’s blood. Peleus ignored me and I reached his enormous throat in seconds. My talon-like hands slashed and cut at his flesh. His jugular spurted blood. I bit deep into his flesh. Victory!

He lifted me away from him like I was nothing. I was certainly no bigger than a cat relative to him now. His flesh healed before my eyes, taking on a golden hue as he restored it. Then he tossed me aside and I bounced on the decking before sliding gracelessly into the pool.

Rage coursed through me. I was shaking uncontrollably as I pulled my vampire body out of the pool and attacked again. I raced towards him as he did
god knows what
to the world, still staring at those images in the sky.

At the last moment he noticed me and made a small flick of his fingers. It was like being hit with an enormous tennis racket. My body tumbled through the air and I curled into a ball just before I hit a wall. The world disappeared behind a purple haze as bones and muscles tore on impact. Vampires are not indestructible. I tasted blood and sensed my dispersed organs struggling to recover. Bones knitted back together and I screamed in agony. If Peleus noticed he gave no sign. Since I couldn’t move yet, I assessed the situation.

Lightning tore at the edges of the skyscraper and several concrete slabs had been blown away. It was relatively quiet in the eye of Peleus’ storm, but there were signs of damage on the skyscrapers in the distance. Glass panels were smashed and lights flickered or were out on many of their floors.

Peleus stood at the centre of the storm with his hands raised like a conductor. He was thirty feet tall now and I felt like a toddler beside him. The Krius looked like a toothpick as he made changes to the world according to his whims. I sensed horrible things were happening out there.

This would be my last chance. My strength was almost gone. My body had healed and I felt defeat in my bones. He was unstoppable, but I had to try. I gathered my energies and ran towards him.

He saw me and stopped what he was doing. He made a halt gesture with his hand and my run came to an abrupt stop. He moved his hand forward and I was flung back and crushed against the wall again.

“What shall I do with you, Cear Lotha?” he pondered. His voice reverberated through my body and the topping stones on the wall crumbled into dust. Looking around him he spotted the tables and chairs tumbled over on the decking. The furled sun umbrellas stuck up at odd angles depending on how the tables had fallen. He laughed good-naturedly and the world shook.

Three of the umbrellas shot from the tables like rockets, flying into the sky and out into the night.

“Last chance,” he rumbled at me and I gasped in pain as the umbrellas’ reappeared speeding out of the dark and tore through my body, pinioning me to the wall.

Vampires can take a lot. Provided the head is not severed from the body and the heart not pierced, they can survive, the heart and brain being the only organs not distributed across the body. It was why wiping them out had taken me so long. The umbrellas skewered me in the shoulders and through the stomach, none of them fatal wounds for a vampire in themselves, but if I didn’t free myself soon my body would expire from the effort of trying to repair itself.

I raised my legs and wrapped my bare feet around the pole in my stomach. A vampire’s feet can grasp to some extent, more than humans can. They have to, to climb walls. My toenails dug through the furled canvas into the wood beneath and then I pulled. Nothing happened so I bent the pole from side to side, loosening it. Indescribable pains ran through me before the pole was out.

My vampire constitution repaired my stomach as I took deep breaths to clear my head. I couldn’t reach the two poles in my shoulders with my hands because of the way I was pinned. I gritted my teeth and brought my legs up to my shoulders and did the whole thing again.

Pulling the third pole out was the simplest, but my strength was almost all gone. I was surprised my body had the energy to effect repairs. Standing up was entirely a different matter. I lay on the decking and lifted my head to see what Peleus was up to.

What I saw brought a gasp. Somewhere in the world Peleus had recreated Atlantis just as I remembered it. Impossible crystal towers stretched out to touch the skies with their beauty.

“From your mind,” Peleus rumbled. “When I saw it I had to recreate it.”

I found strength from hidden depths and staggered to my feet to face the bastard.

“I will call it New Camelot and all the Fey will live in it. There to do my bidding as my faithful lieutenants.”

I took a hesitant step forward.

“If you attack me again, Cear. I shall kill you. You have lived for so long. Is this how you want to die?”

No, I wanted to die with his heart crushed between my teeth, taking him with me. However, it didn’t look as though I was going to be given a choice in the matter. But I didn’t want to die as a vampire. I wanted to die as me.

As soon as I shifted, I realized that the Vampire body had failed to heal itself completely. I doubled over from the pain in my stomach. If I didn’t hurry, Peleus wouldn’t need to finish me off. I tore at my clothes. The Lotha tribe didn’t wear clothes, only a belt with a sack to carry the simplest tools. I wanted to die as a member of my tribe. My skin, hair and eyes were entirely the wrong color, but I was born of the Lotha and I wanted to die the same way.

Lightning bolts struck around me, throwing concrete chips my way and filling the air with enough electricity to make my hair stand on end. Peleus was still trying to intimidate me and I found that insulting.

“Come on, you bastard. Kill me and have done with it.”

I stepped towards him and he shook his massive head sadly. Then he raised his hands and a wall of fire burst towards me.

It parted around me and rivers of flame ran on either side of my feet though I felt no heat. He was playing with me. I took another step forward and another. Lightning forked all about me. The building trembled from the impacts, but again the strikes missed me. It was getting easier for me to walk, as if somehow the damage done to my body was healing. I couldn’t see Peleus in front of me for smoke, though I saw shapes like massive rocks flying towards me and then vanishing as if they’d never been.

I stopped and looked to my rear. What I saw was astonishing. Most of the top of the building was gone. I could see into the room where we’d fought Nevin. The outer wall was almost completely gone, though the Thampthis Box still sat on the coffee table, somehow miraculously untouched.

I turned back to Peleus. The smoke had gone as had the storm and he was back to his normal size, down on one knee, breathing hard. I took a step towards him and then another. He waved the Krius to no effect and then he threw it at me. It sailed past me to land somewhere in the silver room below.

The lust that comes from shifting was on me and he was a man. For a moment the thought of that ran through my head and I spat in self-disgust. I held my desires in check and stepped closer to this abomination of a man.

He stood and gathered himself to face me.

“Look at the good that I, King Arthur, have accomplished.” He seemed proud of himself. “I have saved the world.”

Behind him one of the umbrellas pointed up at an angle. It seemed ideal.

“Then accept your reward.”

I pushed him two-handed with all my strength. I seemed to have more of it than I expected. He flew back, the pole skewering him through the heart.

Peleus looked at me in astonishment. He lifted his hands in supplication and then they fell limp as he died.

“I hope you rot in hell.”

The sexual urges pulled at my body and I dropped to the ground. I curled up in a ball refusing to give in to them. The only one I wanted to make love to was gone. I wept for the loss of Brian; he had so much living to do and I had taken it from him.

Something soft wafted against my thigh. I opened my eyes as Brian changed back from hawk to human.

“Are you alright? It took me ages to fly back.”

I sat up and looked in the appropriate place and saw that he was as ready as
I.
Putting my arms around him I pulled him towards me and spread my legs.

 
“Hey, are youse two up here?”

At least they had waited an hour before coming up to see what had happened. I rolled off Brian much to his annoyance. I looked around to see
The Don
and Vinnie by the elevator. It staggered me that it was still working and that they had been mad enough to risk using it.

“We’re fine. King Arthur over there, not so good.”

The Don
and his son clambered over wreckage to stare at the impaled body of Peleus.

“I guess he got the point,” Vinnie said and I rolled my eyes to the heavens.

“Yeah, he had it coming,”
The Don
said, taking a cigar and lighter out of his pocket. “Strange things have been happening, people missing. Mike disappeared in front of us and the President’s missing. Are they gonna come back?”

I shook my head. “I wasn’t able to stop him in time. I still don’t know
how
I stopped him.”

“It doesn’t matter how. You did good, kid.”
The Don
blew a smoke ring at me. “We need to get you out of here. Got firemen and cops downstairs determined to come up and check out the place.”

Brian stood. “I’ve got to go check on my Mom. Just in case…”

I nodded. So many dead. Everyone would have lost someone and there were no bodies to mourn. That made it worse somehow. I made a bet with myself that the evangelicals would be claiming this as the wrath of God by morning if they weren’t already. Whatever Peleus was, he never made it to godhood, that was for sure.

“Brian, go down with
The Don
and find some clothes. I’ll join you in a few minutes.”

When they were gone I jumped down into the silver room, landing in the safe area around the table, which was still miraculously clear of debris. It was no surprise to find the Krius sitting on the table between the two halves of the box. When I picked it up it vibrated for a second and then stopped.

I carefully put it into the Krius shaped hole in the base of the box and then brought the two halves of the box together, whereupon they welded together seamlessly. No surprises there. I’d have been staggered if they didn’t. Putting the box under my arm I walked to the door. I expected the silver under my feet to burn, but I felt nothing.

On reaching the den I gave the box to
The Don
.

“Give this back to the museum. Say someone left it by the door for you last night. You’ll be a hero.”

The Don
nodded, “Your boy tried calling his mother, but got no answer. You’d best go see he’s alright.”

I started for the door when something soft hit me on the back. I turned to find black clothing lying on the floor behind me.

“It might be easier if you was wearing something,” Vinnie said sagely.

33.
              
Hankle

I sat cross-legged on furs opposite Hankle in our room in Atlantis. We were naked and he looked wonderful. I knew at once it was a dream and didn’t hesitate to tell him so.

“Not
just
a dream, Cear. When you felt the Krius vibrate, it set in motion the forces to create this dream. I am Hankle in all the ways that matter.”

Yeah…right… My dead lover, more than a hundred centuries gone, bringing me messages from the grave.

Hankle gave me that annoying smile he had when he was one step ahead of me.

“Today, someone used the Krius and did terrible things. This was foretold. You stopped him, this was also foretold.”

I exploded with anger. “That damned Krius didn’t work for me or for my friends. Unimaginable numbers of people died because I didn’t believe it would work for Peleus.”

Hankle offered me water in a carved coconut shell. I shook my head.

“The Krius works for those who believe in what they want to do. You and your friends had no such beliefs and so it would do nothing for any of you.”

“Thanks for nothing. A weapon that only works for madmen,” I spat back.

Hankle nodded, as if agreeing with me. “It would be dangerous in the hands of a madman, which is why it is tuned especially for you. That tuning happened when you first took it in your hands in this room. You can always stop anyone using the Krius.”

I stood up and I admit I stamped a foot… hard. “It and Peleus damned near killed me.”

Hankle froze as if someone had pressed pause on a DVD. He came back to life a moment later with a rueful look on his face.

“The Krius didn’t recognize you because you were shifted. When you appeared as yourself, all attacks on you were diverted and each attack reduced the power of the Krius the wielder could use. No magic can detect you when you are shifted; you become the creature you shift to.”

“You could have told me that earlier.”

Hankle came over and hugged me tightly. I tensed at first, but then I let him comfort me. We had been close once and I had loved him deeply. After a long time he whispered in my ear.

“It is the role of the Fey to be the guardians of humanity. Without magic, the human race cannot survive. We have diverted all the rocks hurtling through space that might have wiped out the human race. We moderated the climate when the Earth might have frozen or baked; we have seen and stopped many disasters. The magicians of Atlantis protected the Earth from danger for twelve thousand years into our future, but we cannot fend off disasters beyond that point. It is too far for us to see. That is why we created the Fey and the Krius.”

A nice speech, but essentially meaningless. I sighed. Today had been rough. Brian’s mother was one of Peleus’ victims and he was inconsolable. He wouldn’t even talk to his father. The television was full of stories, of cities that no longer existed, of pain and suffering, of countries in crisis. But in the end it always comes down to the personal. Millions of people like Brian, trying to come to terms with the fact that someone they loved would never be seen again.

Those of faith had convinced themselves that this was the rapture and that the lost had been left behind as unworthy to be granted heaven. I suppose that was putting a positive spin on it. Insane, but positive.

“You were the first. I think you know that.” Hankle said quietly. “But you were never told you were the only perfect Fey. The one that was exactly what we conceived. None of the others were.”

I pulled away from him and went to look out over the city and the plains beyond.

“We were supposed to be able to work magic.”

Hankle came to stand behind me and I felt his warm breath on my shoulder.

“No, you were supposed to
be
magic. Creatures who could guide humans without pushing them in any particular direction, letting them reach their full potential without controlling them. Helping them, without them ever becoming dependent on you.”

An old sadness rose inside me. “If I’m so perfect why have I never had children? It’s certainly not been through abstinence.”

“Your parents put a geis on you, fertility magic as old as humanity itself. To make you wait for the perfect male Fey before you conceived.”

That was absurd. I wanted to spit in his face for telling me such a lie.

“Hah, am I supposed to wait forever?”

“No, you are already pregnant. Your body knows and it was foretold it would happen immediately after the Krius was used for the first time.”

I looked inside myself and knew what he said was true. I had conceived on the roof last night and a flower of joy bloomed in my heart.

“Brian is the perfect male Fey?”

Hankle laughed, “Perfect is such a strange term. You are what the Fey were created to be, strong, courageous, loving, sexual and headstrong. These are the characteristics the wise pick for their gods; creatures to admire and to love. Your children are destined to be something else again.”

“But why did Peleus have to get hold of the Krius?”

Hankle looked serious. “It was foretold that if we created the Krius its first use would be terrible, but that through its use humanity would survive. We made that choice and the burden is ours, not yours.”

“What Peleus did was necessary?”

Hankle began to fade. He waved at me and said one last thing.

“He brought you and Brian together and thus humanity has a chance of survival.”

The End

Carlotta will be back.