Page 16

“You could burrow underneath the corpses, Eyros, to avoid the sun. But why bother? Why not embrace it? Because you are going to die anyway!” Kaly hissed.

Balthazar spun around. A woman with long black hair stood behind him. Her dusky skin glowed with health. She wore a black sheath dress with a slit up to her shapely thigh. She, too, was shoeless and gore stretched up from her delicate feet to her knees. Though Kaly inhabited a different form than Artemis Alucius and was a different gender, Balthazar knew them. His fangs ached with the desire to rip out that throat.

Balthazar’s eyes narrowed. “If I am going to burn away then so are you, Kaly! The sun spares none of us!”

“What? This body? Yes, you’re right! You’re absolutely right!” Kaly laughed. It was a tinkling, almost beautiful sound. Kaly held up a delicate hand into the growing light. “But this body means nothing to me. I can watch while it burns up and just float away to another form. But you.” A cruel smile crossed those full lips. “But you have only the body you wear now. If it burns, you burn.”

Balthazar swallowed. “You’re not Wyvern. You couldn’t have truly physically brought me here. So... this is in my head.”

But how can they be doing this? This is something like an Eyros would do!

Kaly smirked. “You, of all people, Eyros, should know that what’s in your mind is in your reality.”

Balthazar scanned the horizon again. He was still looking for any structure he could hide in from the sun. He felt its warmth against his legs and caressing his back through the shirt he wore. Panic fluttered in his chest. Because Kaly was right. This felt real. So burning to death would also likely feel real. And if this was truly in his mind, Kaly could keep his torment going for what felt like forever. Time meant nothing in the mind. A moment could stretch out for an eternity. Roan had shown him this. How many times had he been imprisoned in some hell hole, tortured, and then released after what had seemed like years, only to find that minutes had passed?

How is Kaly doing this though?!

Kaly spread their arms. “But the body--the physical realm--is something that is so limited. Even the mind is, but the soul… oh, the soul is vast and endless.”

Balthazar swallowed. Maybe this wasn’t just in his head. Maybe Kaly had somehow yanked his soul out of his body or something.

No, they haven’t done that. They couldn’t have done that!

“You already died here once.” Kaly cocked their head to the side with another sly smile. “Do you remember?”

Balthazar remembered then how Elgar had spoken about finding his head then clutching it to his chest as he burrowed into the corpses. It had been on the battlefield where Eyros had died. That had happened here. That was here.

Oh, dear God…

Kaly was smiling and nodding as they saw that Balthazar understood what was going to happen. “I’m going to remind you, Eyros. I’m going to make you live it over and over again.”

“Hell, no!” Balthazar tensed and reached for Kaly’s mind. “You’re going to let me go!”

He touched Kaly’s mind, ready to make the other Immortal into his puppet. Or, at least, make Kaly return him to the Well of All Souls. Kaly’s eyes widened for a moment, but then a hand fastened around Balthazar’s ankle and his concentration was lost. Kaly’s mind ghosted away from his control.

DAMN IT!WHAT THE HELL?!

Balthazar looked down as one of the dead Vampires dug his long fingernails into his flesh. Pain erupted in his leg.

Oh, Hell no!

Rage-filled, Balthazar shook that grasping hand from his ankle before kicking the vampire’s head with his other foot. The head snapped back, the skull caving in, the neck letting out a crack as the spine broke. But it didn’t stop moving. Those empty, cataract-covered eyes looked up at him. The corpse smiled.

Balthazar brought his foot down on that skull with all his strength. It crushed under his foot. He grimaced as the Vampire’s dead brain gushed around his bare foot and between his toes. He went to reach for Kaly’s mind again.

But then another hand grabbed his other leg.

And another hand grasped his thigh, but not in a nice way.

And another.

And another.

And another.

They were all around him. Dozens. No, hundreds.

The dead Vampires dragged him down into the mud. The weight of them were shoving him knee deep in the stinking foul mass. Fingernails ripped at his skin. He felt them tearing his flesh. Some of them slid into his mouth. He bit down on them. Dead blood burst over his tongue. He spat out those digits only to have more reach inside of him and stretch his mouth wide. His cheeks began to rip open. His own blood flooded his mouth and poured down his throat. A terrible thirst immediately assailed him even as it seemed he was drinking endlessly.