Bloodliner (35 page)

*****

Chapter 101

Arthur helped Mavis get into position beneath the third and final set of locks, then kissed her and went off to get Jonah. As Mavis watched him go, her heart ached at even that brief separation.

I never want to be apart from him again. I'd rather die.

On nearby pillars, James and Thomas rested and recovered from their ordeal. Thomas was in the worst shape by far, his face ruptured and blackened with bruises and blood.

"Look who I found!" Arthur helped Jonah mount the pillar next to Mavis, directly under the final set of locks. "The second key has returned to finish the job!"

Jonah blew out his breath and shook his head. "What a day, huh?"

"You can say that again." Mavis smiled. "How about we get this over with?"

As the two of them reached for the overhead lock panels, Arthur stopped them. "Wait! Your hands aren't bleeding anymore."

Mavis lowered her hand and stared at the palm. "It's scabbed over."

"I'll bet mine's okay," said Jonah. "It still looks wet."

"Better to be certain." Holding on to his pillar with one hand, Arthur drew Excalibur from its scabbard with the other. "Hold your hands out, please. Palms up."

Mavis and Jonah did as he said. Arthur reopened the cuts on their palms with one swift stroke of Excalibur, slicing just deep enough to draw fresh blood.

"All's well, milady." Arthur replaced Excalibur in its scabbard. "Whenever you're ready..."

Mavis nodded and reached up, and so did Jonah. "Three...," she said. "Two. One."

She and Jonah simultaneously pressed their bloody hands against the smooth panels of the lock. After a long moment, Mavis felt the usual tingling in her arm...and a moment after that, glittering sparks swirled under the panels. This time, the sparks were bright green.

"What happens next?" Jonah lowered his hand from the lock and looked around.

Mavis watched as the panels above her swirled and sparkled. "Not much so far."

Thomas laughed through the cracked walnut of his beaten face. "Maybe
nothing
happens. Maybe it's all a big
joke
."

At that instant, the panels above Mavis and Jonah suddenly flared with green light. Squinting through the sudden blaze, Mavis saw the other locks flare, too—one burning bright red, the other bright yellow.

They held like that for a moment, casting down shafts of blinding radiance. Then, the lights began to rotate and pulsate, fanning out over the throngs of vampires on the floor far below. When the lights cruised over them, the vampires stopped fighting and looked up toward the source, toward Mavis and Jonah and Arthur.

Soon, the whole chamber was still except for the pulsing, swooping lights. Mavis glimpsed hundreds of vampires standing and watching, friends and enemies side by side. She glimpsed Hercules watching at the door, Alexander from the heart of a mob, Stanza from the base of the pillars far below, all frozen.

Then, Mavis heard sounds rising in the distance, low and discordant. They built fast, growing louder and louder—cacophonous notes of every pitch, timbre, and texture, clashing and swirling, like an out-of-control orchestra tuning up with aggressive purpose, conducted by a madman. Like the notes of a symphony caught in a hurricane, tumbling wild 'round the eye, chaos from genius.

Mavis wished she could cover her ears, but she couldn't let go of the pillar. The cacophony quickly built to a deafening crescendo, swelling throughout the chamber...and then it held there.

And the pillars began to descend.

All at once, the crystalline pillars slid downward, gliding toward the floor. Surprised, Mavis hugged her pillar more tightly, and Arthur steadied her with a hand on her shoulder. She saw Jonah had more trouble and almost lost his grip...but Thomas leaped across to Jonah's pillar and wrapped around him, locking him in place.

As the pillars dropped, the lights went out—not just the red, yellow, and green searchlights, but
all
the lights. The concentric circles of gray light in the ceiling switched off, and the entire chamber plunged into darkness.

"Hang on, Mavis!" Arthur had to shout over the sustained cacophony for her to hear him. "I'm with you! Just
hang on
!"

Mavis was disoriented by the feeling of sliding through blackness, being aware of motion but unable to see where she was headed. The touch of Arthur's hand on her shoulder kept her calm, though, kept her from being afraid.

Even when his hand left her, she wasn't scared. She knew he was there beside her, watching over her, holding her together. She knew his touch would not be gone for long.

Sure enough, it soon returned. Mavis felt the breeze from a flurry of motion, and then his hand squeezed her shoulder. She leaned her head to the side and nuzzled his fingers, relieved to feel them again.

That was when she heard James shouting over the din. James, perched on one of the pillars facing in her direction.

James the vampire, who could see in the dark.

"That's not Arthur!" he said.

Mavis' eyes flew wide. She jerked her head away from the hand on her shoulder.

"That's
Genghis
!" said James.

Mavis flinched away from the hand, but it dug more deeply into the meat of her shoulder. She tried to twist away again, and this time broke free—only to be struck hard by a blow across her face.

"King Arthur can't help you now, bitch!" Genghis laughed and hit her again. "You're all mine!"

Suddenly, his hand clamped around her throat and dragged her toward him. Mavis struggled, but his iron grip held her tight.

She felt his icy breath against her ear. "I'm stealing you away from him," he said. "
Forever
. And trust me, you're going to
like
it."

Mavis struggled again, and Genghis' grip tightened.

"You'll thank me later." He hissed and pulled her closer.

"No!" said James. "Don't do it!"

Mavis' heart hammered in her chest. She remembered the vision she'd had of herself as a vampire, the vision that had followed her all the way from the waters off Lyonesse.

"Think of this as the first day of your life," said Genghis. "And think of me as the doctor who delivers you."

"No!" Mavis shook and tried in vain to pull away. "Please don't!"

Just as the pillars began to slow, she felt Genghis' fangs penetrate her throat.

*****

Chapter 102

As the blood flowed out of her, and Genghis'
feratu
poison flowed
into
her, Mavis completely relaxed. Her whole body went limp; she would have fallen from the pillar without Genghis' supporting arm around her shoulders.

Closing her eyes, she floated on the edge of a dream, barely tethered to the waking world by the sound of his voice in her ear.

"Easy now, little butterfly." The riot of noise in the chamber hadn't stopped, but Genghis' voice was the loudest, clearest thing she heard. "The first moments can be a shocking experience."

Suddenly, a sharp pain exploded in Mavis' chest. She writhed and clutched at her heart, crying out as the pain intensified.

Genghis gripped her shoulder tightly. "You'll be fine. That's just your old life melting away."

Oh my God.

Through the muscle and rib of her chest, Mavis felt a wild thrashing unlike any kind of heartbeat. Something turned and kicked and jabbed inside her body, churning and poking between the ribs.

"It's the
feratu
," said Genghis. "It's eating your heart."

As if the pain had not been great enough already, it suddenly doubled. The thrashing in Mavis' chest intensified a hundredfold. She felt as if she were being torn apart from the inside, and she screamed at the top of her lungs.

"Hold on, my dear," said Genghis. "You're almost there."

Mindless in the throes of her agony, Mavis continued to howl and flail...and then, all at once, the torment ceased. Her whole being hung suspended, every sensitized nerve awaiting the next burst of pain.

But the pain never came. Instead, a shimmering lightness spread through her body, a tingling like the pleasant nervousness of mild excitement. She slumped, relishing the thrilling shivers flickering through her.

At that moment, the pillars ceased their downward movement, and Mavis' feet touched the floor. She nearly collapsed, but Genghis kept his arm around her and held her up.

"So what do you think, sweetheart?" he said.

Mavis blinked hard—and suddenly, she could see. The chamber was still immersed in darkness, but her eyes could see through it. She saw Genghis standing beside her, a figure of glowing gray in the midst of dim twilight.

As Mavis stared at him, her mood began to change. She felt the thing in her chest twitch and growl.

"Aren't you going to thank me, honey?" said Genghis.

A sudden rush of fire blazed through Mavis' veins. What she did next seemed as natural and instinctive as breathing, though it was something she had never done before.

She bared her new fangs and hissed in Genghis' face.

Before Genghis could say another word, Mavis sprang at him, every atom of her being crying out for bloody murder.

*****

Chapter 103

Newly endowed with the strength of a vampire, Mavis blasted Genghis with a flurry of superhuman blows. She struck with more power than she'd ever possessed in her life, more than enough force to kill a human being with one punch.

She hammered him again and again, frenzied, relentless. Her mind was a fireball of rage, spinning and roiling, burning off all thoughts but one.

Kill him! I'll kill him!

Thanks to Genghis, her vision had come true in a terrible way. She would gladly have become a vampire if Arthur had offered to make her one...but being transformed by Genghis against her will was all wrong. She felt violated on an intimate level, and all she could think of was brutal revenge.

As powerful and enraged as she was, though, Genghis exceeded her. Laughing, he swung out an arm and swatted her away, flicking her to the floor at his feet. Mavis leaped up and lunged at him, and he caught her by the throat.

Mavis thrashed, but the pressure on her throat only intensified. Genghis kept squeezing, cutting off the flow of blood to her head. She began to black out.

Then, a bolt of liquid fire surged from her chest—from the
feratu
that had taken the place of her heart. Without meaning to, without trying to, she began to change. Her body stretched and snapped and unfolded, twisting into a new form.

Genghis squeezed her throat harder. "Kinky, kinky! Just the way I like 'em."

Looking out of the corner of her eye, Mavis saw a ribbed and leathery wing unfolding beside her, dusted with fine red fur. Raising her hands, she saw her fingers curling into crescent-shaped claws with sharp points and serrated edges. She flexed them, clicking the opalescent bony blades together.

Genghis laughed and shook her like a toy in his grip. "I can do kinky, too." As he said it, his body curdled and grew, shifting into the shape of a creature at least twice his original size. Instead of a giant hawk, he ended up looking like a monstrous cross between a polar bear and a gorilla—like a Yeti, an Abominable Snowman. He was covered with shaggy white fur, and his eyes were fiery red. His massive white wings fanned out like the jagged wings of a demon, each rib tipped with a glistening point.

"Let's do it like animals." In his new form, Genghis' voice boomed and crackled.

Mavis pried at his hands and kicked and struggled, to no effect. She slashed at him, gouging his fur-covered arm, but he just kept strangling her.

James and Thomas leaped into the fray to help her, switching to their own batlike forms and pouncing on the roaring Yeti. They pummeled and tore at him with abandon, pounding and slicing like maniacs in the darkness.

Arthur joined them, returning from wherever Genghis had dumped him when he'd thrown him off the descending pillar. He hacked at the Yeti with Excalibur, chopping the blade into the monster's flesh like a butcher going berserk on a side of beef.

But Genghis wouldn't let go of Mavis, and he wouldn't go down. If he felt any pain at all from his wounds, he didn't show it. Juggernaut that he was, he continued choking Mavis with one hand and fending off the three superhuman attackers with the other.

Then, suddenly, everything changed.

The blaring cacophony of noise that filled the chamber cut off. The darkness ended, too, as shafts of white light flared to life, stabbing up from the holes in the floor into which the crystal pillars had disappeared.

Genghis looked around but didn't let go of Mavis. "The moment we've all been waiting for." He tossed her over his shoulder and swatted aside James and Thomas. "I'm about to become lord of Empyrea and king of the world!"

"Never!" Arthur swept Excalibur back and leaped at Genghis. The gleaming blade swung toward Genghis' throat, about to sever his head from his shoulders.

But Arthur didn't finish that stroke.