THE VROL TRILOGY (43 page)

"
Undaincantatio ultravita.
"

###

Liliana continued to ramble about the
castle's ventilation tunnels, against Jennie's instructions,
wanting to monitor her friend's activities. As she navigated the
small corridors, she noticed a grate from which light emanated.
Quickly scrambling toward the opening, she was almost near it, and
could even small both Jennie and Max. She had to constantly wipe
dust out of her eyes, being probably the only lycan to have entered
the shafts in decades. The little girl was excited, as if she were
in the heat of battle herself, and only wished to help her friend,
but right before she reached the path's end she felt a hand grab
her by the collar.

"Gotcha, you little shit!"

###

Max's powerful ultraviolet blast caused
his three attackers to immediately fall and start screaming while
ripping at their faces, with their leader looking on in horror. The
alien commander then gingerly dropped to the ground, lopped off
each of their heads (along with their hands that were clenching
their faces), and smiled at the rotting king. Max sauntered over to
Vladros, with massive sprays of blood jettisoning into the air out
of his victims' severed carotid arteries, creating a beautiful red
fountain of liquid death as his own personal backdrop. He was
developing his own style in the art of war, and it was pretty -
unless one was on the dying end of his blade.

"Do NOT approach me, murderer!"
screamed the obviously alarmed and cowardly vampire king, as his
remaining troops backed up with him. "Before the sun rises I shall
see your corpse lying in the dirt."

"Oh, shut up, asshole. I
mean - why do you have to be such a dick? And what's with
this
Ooo, we're going to defeat the lycans
and rule the universe
thing
anyway?"

Focusing in on his meter, he saw that
his yellow line was half depleted, giving him enough juice for one
really epic skill, so he used a powerful gravity push cantus to
lift up and violently slam Vladros and the remaining enemy forces
to the ground. The vampire protectors got the message, immediately
scrambled up to their feet and made for the main gate, running out
into the open plains and leaving their liege at the mercy of the
young, but powerful lycan mage.

Jennie had defeated her remaining
opponent in a gruesome, yet stylish fashion, so she cautiously
circled around the courtyard, but didn't approach Max. She knew he
wanted to handle Vladros on his own.

The young lycan male rushed forward in
a blur, and grasping Vladros' leather jacket, pulled him up to face
level.

"Dude, you really are a sick puke. You
are mean, you sent your son to kill me, and worst of all - you
kidnapped and harmed the most important person in the world to
me."

Jennie watched with rapt attention, but
upon hearing Max's statement regarding her she felt a bit stunned -
and a bit guilty for having been so unkind to him for such a long
time.

"You murdered my son," hissed Vladros,
his rancid breath nearly causing Max's eyes to water up.

"I didn't murder your son. He attacked
us when we were minding our own business, relaxing under the waxing
moon. But what's good for the goose is good for the gander,
eh?"

"You… you mounted his head on a stake!
You challenged my kingdom with that perversion," he said, still
maintaining a defiant look on his rotting, malformed
face.

"Well, I can explain that. You see,
there's this hottie who I was trying to impress, and, well you
understand how it is with girls. They just love that kind of
stuff."

"You challenged me! You killed my son!
I am the Alpha and the Omega!"

"Uh, no - that title belongs to someone
else, but I'll give you an Omega… let's take a walk,
bro."

Max moved to drag the vampire king
away, but was caught off-guard when Vladros desperately thrust a
clawed glove up into the young lycan's handsome visage - the glove
having a deadly rhodium coating on the palms and metal
fingernails.

"Die, lycan scum! Die!" howled the
terrified vampire.

Max dropped to his knees and screamed,
blood spurting out from behind the gloved hand that perversely
covered his face.

###

Back in his private
offices, Draagh attended to his own wounds, which he had kept
conveniently hidden from his grandson and Jennie. Although
incredibly powerful, the Primulus had gone up against one of his
own - his brother - and had suffered dearly. He had used up nearly
his last remaining bits of strength to heal Max and Jennie, and did
so gladly. However, this didn't bode well for the eons-old
First One
, as he tried a
number of incredibly complex cantuses to force his aged body to
heal itself.

As the massive diagonal gash across his
chest (which would have been deadly to any mortal) slowly healed,
he knew he was draining himself of valuable energies. It was a
meticulous game of dying while healing, and he knew for Max and
Jennie's sake (and for the entire human race) that he must
heal.

This body cannot take much
more. Soon I shall take a nice, long vacation.

###

In the courtyard, Max thrashed about in
Vladros' powerful grip, apparently unable to release himself from
the deadly gauntlet made of rhodium, the most toxic element known
to both lycans and vampires. A mere three rhodium-tipped arrows
would be enough to kill even the most powerful of phase 3 lycans,
and Max had four fingers and a thumb, all coated in the deadly
metal, penetrating the skin of his face. His arms started to flail
around, prompting Jennie to prepare to assist her
comrade.

"Max, hold on! I'm coming!" she yelled
from across the courtyard, as she went to charge the rotting
vampire. She got within four meters and hit an invisible wall - Max
had created a force field with the last vestiges of his
energy.

Jennie screamed and beat on the shield,
tears streaming down her face. "Max! You idiot! Don't do this! Let
me help!"

Vladros grew a maniacal smile and looked at
the attractive (even by vampire standards) female, reveling in her
inability to save her compatriot. Jennie dropped to the ground,
sobbing, as Max's body twitched and jerked while under Vladros'
grasp.

But something was wrong… or right.

Max suddenly stopped thrashing, and
struggled to move his arms. Vladros looked down, a quizzical
expression lining his face, as he demanded, "What are you doing,
lycan scum? Die!"

With what appeared to be massive
effort, Max thrust one arm out forward, followed by the other, both
palms down. Then, he turned his palms up, one by one. It appeared
it was all he could do to move - as if some unseen force held him
back. Vladros increased his grip, his arm shaking, but Max
continued.

He then crossed his right arm over to his
left shoulder, followed by crossing his left arm over to his right,
and appeared to be moving his hips side to side.

"What are you doing, dog? You should be
dead by now!" screamed the ghoul.

Vladros desperately held onto Max's
face, as blood seeped out and spilled over the young lycan's neck,
but the young lycan/mage continued with his odd movements. This
time, Max moved his right arm up behind his head, followed by his
left arm doing the same.

It was at that moment that
he effortlessly burst up and out of Vladros' grip, while singing,
"
Dale a tu cuerpo alegria Macarena - Que
tu cuerpo es pa' darle alegria y cosa Buena - Dale a tu cuerpo
alegria, Macarena - Hey Macarena!
"

Jennie stopped everything and dropped
her sword, laughing hysterically, while crying at the same time.
Nothing Max did surprised her anymore. Vladros didn’t know what to
do - he just stood, confused and frozen in place, as Max finished
the sequence to one of the most popular dego party dances since
Earth times. His hand then shot out and grasped Vladros' glove,
breaking the man's wrist and forcing him to the ground as he did
so.

"Idiota! Boludo!" Jennie cried
out.

"C'mon, Vlad, do the
Macarena with me! By the way, that little trick doesn't
work,
o terrifying lord of the
underworld
. You see, I may be lycan, but
my grandfather is a Primulus - kinda like God's right-hand, and
that makes me immune to a lot of stuff. Stuff like platinum family
metals. You, however, are shark bait, unless you're immune to
dozens of razor-sharp teeth. So… let's test that
theory!"

On his knees, and having been abandoned
by his personal protection forces, while no longer being enhanced
by Marnn's special amulet, Vladros looked around in vain for
someone to save him, suddenly spying Ryder. Johnson had, up to that
point, evaded any form of conflict, and was perched like a vulture
on a balcony overlooking the courtyard.

"My son!" Vladros yelled, desperately
thrusting his arm out toward the former lieutenant, supplicating to
the alien he had despised just moments earlier, "Come save your
king! I shall give you a place at my side!"

Johnson stood where he was, wearing a
sinister smirk on his face, and displayed his middle finger to
Vladros while he yelled, "Go screw yourself, Easy-Bake!"

The self-styled
king of everything
could
do nothing but desperately claw at the ground, as Max dragged him
in leisurely fashion along the courtyard toward the main gate, now
whistling the tune to
Macarena
.

"There you go, you big dork. Now I'll never
get that song out of my head! All your fault!"

Abject terror seared through Vladros'
brain. He failed to understand how he had not defeated Gunnarsson
with his rhodium glove, and then how the man was so easily - and
casually - dragging him to his assured end. He had one option left.
It pained him to do so, as it would mean his utter defeat and
humiliation, but he had no choice. In what was probably the only
sincere request he ever made in his life, he stated, "Stop, lycan.
I strike a deal. Spare my life and I shall promise to never return!
I shall give up all my lands and flee. Take me to Krynos. Please,
just please, spare my life. Bring me to my king."

"Really?" asked Max as he continued
dragging the rotting ghoul along.

"Yes, I swear! Krynos shall know my
word is my bond. His troops can escort me out of his kingdom. All I
own shall be his."

Max paused for a moment and looked back
at Jennie. She was truly stunning, even covered in blood from the
night of fighting. He wondered if mercy was a quality of the
Prīmulī, but then he remembered Jennie in her cell, beaten, after
she had been kidnapped.

Then, in his mind, he saw Alea being
manipulated into kidnapping Jennie, all of the village normals who
had lost their lives during the attack, as well as Kangor and
Wilhelm.

That pissed him off even more.

"Nah! I'm done with you. Plus, no one
wants your shitty castle anyway."

Exiting through the massive portal, Max
picked the struggling, screaming and defeated vampire king up over
his head, and loudly called out to Krynos' aquatic pets.

"Hey Jaws! Dinnertime!"

Mustering every ounce of
strength in his body, Max threw the howling leader up high over the
shark-filled moat, where two massive great whites breached and
shared the ghoul's body in what appeared to be a quick, mid-air
kiss, and then ripped the man in two, resulting in Vladros' purple,
disentangled guts gruesomely hanging in mid-air for a brief moment.
A thunderous crash sounded through the air as the two beasts
disappeared into the murky depths below, the now-dead man's
entrails slapping lazily onto the water as they fell to the opaque
surface.

Running back into the courtyard, Max
saw Jennie looking up at where Johnson was on his balcony, her
sword at the ready. The former Azul Military lieutenant had a
wicked grin on his face, and shouted so loudly that practically
everyone in the castle could hear his voice.

"Hey, dega bitch! I got a new friend!"
he yelled, pulling Liliana up by the hair for them to
see.

The little lycan girl had a look of
utter panic on her dusty, tear-stained face, as Johnson dangled her
over the balcony's edge. He had tracked her scent, and waited until
she was in a nearby access tunnel from which he unceremoniously
snatched her.

"Come and get her!" he crowed, and then
ran into the blackness of a door well, taking Liliana with
him.

"He wants us to follow him, Jennie."

"Duh. He's toast," she responded. "And
don't ever trick me like that again."

"Huh? Jen, everyone loves the
Macarena," Max said with a grin.

"Max, you're such a… errrrrgh!" she
groaned in exasperation.

The two lycans sprinted to the entrance of
the main hall and bounded up stairs to the mezzanine level, where
they tracked Johnson's and Liliana's scents, finding them in a
corner, a stairwell to his back, with his oversized, dull sword up
to the girl's throat.