A Meet of Tribes (A Shade of Vampire #45)(26)

His serpent tail flicked around, his clawed hands digging deep into Draven’s chest. I cried out, but I couldn’t hear my own voice. Instead, I heard Serena’s scream. She was on her knees, in shackles, held down by a Destroyer.

A golden light poured out of Draven as Serena cried out his name, her face pale with devastation. Azazel was feeding off the Druid’s energy from what I could tell, and I could see his body light up from within, like an incandescent lightbulb. Azazel laughed as he drained him of his life force.

I saw Phoenix, Aida, and myself lumped on one side, our arms tied behind us, runes flickering over our bodies, and our eyes wide and white. I looked over the edge of the platform and noticed another level below, larger and with wide, circular steps descending toward the lowest terrace, many miles down. Hundreds of incubi and succubi lay on the terraces and the stairs, their bodies limp and lifeless.

“This is the perfect recipe for success! A Druid’s life force can be truly extraordinary!” Azazel barked as he continued to draw power from Draven.

The Druid turned pale, the last flickers of life leaving his gray eyes. His gaze settled on Serena. The shadow of a smile passed over his face.

She cried, tears streaming down her cheeks. I felt my own eyes burn, but I couldn’t look away. I couldn’t leave them there. I had to make sure I could stop this before it became a distant probability.

I walked forward to get a better look at Azazel’s claws piercing Draven’s flesh. Blood dripped from the Druid’s wounds while his once tanned skin lost its color.

“You see, Serena,” Azazel said to her, his eyes burning red, “I need a lot of energy to find another world to conquer. Eritopia’s weak now. It can no longer sustain my grandeur. I need something more. I am a king in need of a kingdom!”

“You’re a sick bastard, drunk on your own power!” Serena barked at him between hiccups, while she continued to struggle against her restraints and the Destroyer’s firm grip.

“You know what? Just because you’ve been such a pain in my hide from the moment you and your precious little Oracle friends got here, I think I’ll just go ahead and wipe your kind off the face of…what do you call it? Earth?” Azazel grinned.

He pulled his arms back. Draven dropped motionless to the floor. Serena’s shrill scream pierced through the sky and tore me apart. I moved, so I wouldn’t have to see his eyes open wide, staring lifelessly at her.

Azazel’s claws were glazed in scarlet blood. His skin glimmered gold where it hadn’t been tainted by black scales. He straightened his back and tore his white silk shirt off, revealing his bare chest.

“Just because you’ve been such a nuisance, such a loud little insect constantly ruining my work, I’ll show you what it’s really like to irk a god like me! Your Druid’s just the beginning, my darling!” He laughed maniacally and started scratching runes across his chest, his claws drawing blood with each scratch.

Serena froze, swallowing back tears and watching him in disbelief. She recognized the ritual that Azazel was performing, and so did I. Draven had done the same when he took us to see the Daughters. Where were the Daughters in all of this?

“The Daughters will never let you leave!” Serena shot back, as if reading my non-present mind somehow.

Azazel chuckled as he finished cutting the runes into his flesh. “The Daughters are gone, my darling. Haven’t you noticed?”

A moment of silence followed. Then, Azazel clapped his hands once, and the golden light inside of him expanded outward, as if a star had just been ignited for the first time.

“What…what are you talking about?” Serena’s voice trembled from across the terrace.

The light shone brighter until it was a blinding white, as if we were being swallowed by a nebula. As everything was engulfed by it, Azazel’s words thundered, hurting my ears.

“The Daughters have left, Serena! They’ve abandoned Eritopia, and now, so will we! I’m taking my army to your Earth and burning it all down, and you’re coming along, my darling. I’m going to make you watch as I destroy everything you hold dear.”

Serena’s cry was the last thing I was able to make out as pure hot whiteness glazed me. I felt like I was disintegrating.





Phoenix





I walked through the jungle. Giant purple trees with gnarly branches reached out above, their dark oval leaves obscuring my view of an orange sky. It was dusk, by the looks of it. I followed a narrow trail that snaked through the forest. Swamp canals ran along both sides. Where there weren’t trees, thick mauve foliage, and bundles of dark green shrubs, there were steady streams of murky water riddled with fast-moving shadows.

Little red lights flickered across the water like fireflies. Birds sang overhead. Branches broke, and leaves rustled somewhere behind me. I looked over my shoulder and saw a small figure, about as tall as Vita, emerge from the forest.

The creature wore a dark brown hood, clutching a black leather bag in its skinny arms. It tripped and fell to the ground. A soft voice cursed. It was a woman, I realized, and stopped to get a better look.

She stood up and pulled the hood back to better see ahead. She looked right through me. Her hair was rich, black, and braided with black and white feathers. Her skin was pale, almost as white as marble, and decorated with thousands of tiny green bead piercings mounted in straight vertical lines along her limbs. She was thin, with bony ankles and wrists, and she wore shiny rows of red beads on her forearms and calves. She looked young, but the dirt on her sharp-edged face made it difficult for me to tell more than that.