Page 33 of Between Bloode and Death (Between the Shadows #5)

CHAPTER

THIRTY-TWO

Vladimir of the Void, Spectre, Vladimir the Wicked. Offal. Good for nothing. Useless boy.

He’d been many names over many years. Not always feared, but he’d worked hard to change that.

Used to being viewed as evil, he certainly hadn’t started out that way. A small child, always on the brink of starvation, cast out of village after village, Vladimir had done his best simply to exist.

Feared when he’d craved acceptance, he’d cause little trouble. At first. But people didn’t tolerate differences. Especially when they involved magic that humans found hard to understand.

Vladimir stood on the bow of the small ship taking him toward the White Castle, a place of power. From what he understood, the current White Sea Witch had recently conquered her predecessor but refused to take possession of the island, leaving the keep under new control.

It would normally hide in the pocket dimension in which it resided, but the object called for its maker. And it told that part of Nergal inside Vladimir exactly where to find it.

The nice part about today was not having to battle the most powerful sea witch on the eastern side of the Pacific. He was conserving his strength for his eventual battle against the foes hunting him.

He’d been aware of a certain someone for some time. Searching but never finding.

Like most of his kind, Vladimir had been hiding for as long as he’d been alive. He had no problem staying very small. Because he had, he’d become very large. A force that no one could stop. And soon, he’d ally with the most powerful presence in creation.

A cosmic entity full of chaos and darkness, a mirror to the hell he’d been forced to live with his entire life.

He’d once had a mother, a father, sisters and brothers. Plagues had hit them all hard. Then wars fought for territory, for food, and for loyalty to a king who loved only himself. So much strife until only Vladimir and his older sister remained.

But she’d left him on his sixth birthday, marrying into a family that provided her food and shelter with no room for another mouth to feed.

He’d consigned himself to dying out in the forests, where the rusalka lured helpless men into the water to drown. Where the nezhit caused illness and disease in the healthiest of humans, the milosnitse spread plagues, and the besomar, often mistaken for vampires, fed upon the dead.

Instead, he’d found life among the spirits, power where misfortune hit hardest.

He’d learned that adversity favored the strong, and the word “surrender” had left his vocabulary.

Years of being bullied by the prosperous and magical left a rift in his ability to feel compassion, until Vladimir grew to thrive on misery.

To his shock, he learned he could take power from illness and grief, anger and frustration fueling him to be more. To know more.

Old gods reached out to him, hoping for new life. But Vladimir didn’t care to trade one kind of prison for another, hating the worship that went to beings not worthy of it.

He desired only the power to crush his enemies. To all those who hated necromancers—born through no fault of their own—he wished nothing but unrelenting pain and suffering.

He’d found staunch allies in Irkalla, where he’d first encouraged Hanbi to rise up and find a place among humanity.

Unlike other underworlds, and there were many, the Mesopotamian realm felt like home.

It wasn’t evil as much as it was a pale imprint of life.

An existence that was a shadow of the torture Vladimir had once survived.

Unfortunately, neither Hanbi nor his son, Pazuzu, had managed to get a foothold into the human world. Hanbi had returned to Irkalla a shell of his former evil self. Pazuzu had disappeared. But Nergal had proved a tempting target.

What Nergal craved, Vladimir didn’t. He couldn’t tell the god that though. Nergal thought himself superior in every way. Vladimir didn’t blame him for that. Gods were what they were, designed to believe in their own supremacy.

But Nergal had never been tested the way Vladimir had. Born to rule, given powers over the dead, Nergal lamented a great gift.

Vladimir had spent several lifetimes fighting then consuming his rivals, growing stronger. Better because of it.

No one pushed him around now.

Except for the girl.

He could taste his frustration. He’d been close two decades ago, when he’d killed the most powerful necromancers on the continent.

Morgan and Kels Darkmore, rumored to possess a great treasure, the only gem of its kind.

An artifact in the Mundane plane coveted by a lost god who’d once made Vladimir a deal.

Whispers and rumors had stirred Vladimir for centuries. The promise of eternal peace his, if only he could return what had once been stolen, given to unworthy necromancers, passed down generation by generation until the gem had come to the Darkmores.

They’d been tasty foes. Morgan especially.

He still sometimes fell asleep to her sweet cries, her mournful sobs of misery, knowing she’d lost everything she cared for. Such exquisite pain.

Until her bitch of a daughter had bested him. He didn’t know how she’d done it, but as a young girl she’d hurt him. Him. Vladimir the Wicked.

He’d taken years to recover and regain his strength. Meeting Nergal had been the key though. His dreams were so close. The Darkness was coming. His path toward ultimate damnation.

He couldn’t wait.

He urged his crew to move faster toward the White Castle. Linked to the staff, he commanded the pocket dimension to open for him, the staff a beacon that drew him past all animal and magical guards. What he didn’t kill, he ingested, the tasty death magic adding to his increasing power.

Finding Nergal’s treasure buried inside the keep, he studied the unimposing staff made of rowan wood, a symbol of success and power.

But before he could grab it and verify if it was indeed the staff Nergal sought, a portal appeared. And a dark fae stepped through it, putting himself between Vladimir and his prize.

A warrior, by the look of him. Large and muscular, armed with a sword that hummed with a soul-hunger. Fascinating.

Vladimir smiled. “Boy, I’ll take you with me when I go.” What he could do with a dark elf to serve him for an eternity! They were exceedingly scarce and even more difficult to hold on to.

He hadn’t believed it when Nergal had used several dark elves at the bazaar, sacrificing them to distract MEC so Vladimir could find his staff. A waste of a hell threader and dark fae.

But none of them had looked this powerful.

“You trespass, unclean one.” The fae flexed, holding his sword, his arms massive under a sleeveless green tunic. Powerful thighs filled his matching trousers, ending at mid-calf to show off large black feet tipped with short claws.

“By what name are you called, elf?”

“I am Onvyr the Almighty.” Onvyr snarled, showing small fangs.

“Almighty?” Came an unwelcome voice. “Says who?”

Vladimir frowned. A blond vampire? That had to be the draugr, Rolf of the Night Bloode.

Which meant the other one joining the party was also of that problematic clan.

The draugr might be a problem, as the tribe were known for their tricky magic and unpredictable natures.

The other one, though. Was he the revenant? Not the nachzehrer. He didn’t feel wolfish enough.

And then Vladimir saw it. That spark of death in his black gaze.

Vladimir smiled. “Ah, the reaper. Welcome, brother.”

A deep, smoky voice issued from a face that could have graced temples and royal sarcophagi.

“I am not your brother, human.” The sneer only enhanced the beautiful features of a creature Vladimir looked forward to possessing.

“I am Imy-Mut.” The name rang in the air like a bell, a shimmer of power there and gone.

Ee-mee Moot? What the hell was that?

Vladimir had taken a few weaker upir as servants, but they’d expired too quickly.

Pathetic, as were most of their kind. Oh, they had physical power, like mini-nukes on the magical scale when it came to offensive tactics.

But he’d found that vampires were easy enough to conquer, so consumed with their massive egos they didn’t realize they too were susceptible to ancient spells of rot and ruin.

Spells only humans could weave.

“Well, Imy-Mut, welcome to the party. Would you mind handing over the staff? Then we can get to the real fun. How would you three like to serve me forever?”

“Seriously? Dude, we don’t have souls. And we don’t like humans.” The draugr turned to the reaper. “Well, actually, I like humans well enough. And Khent kind of does. But mostly, nah.”

To score a reaper and a draugr would make Vladimir the stuff of legends. Adding a dark elf to that… Hmm. Perhaps he shouldn’t rush taking the Staff of Blight. It might not even be the real one.

He commanded the small legion at his disposal, those he’d sent ahead who’d been stealthily entering the keep, to take the staff away.

A group of ghouls, witches, and druids suddenly appeared from under the ground and yanked the staff down and away.

“Onvyr, get it back,” Rolf ordered.

The dark elf left, but Vladimir paid him no mind.

There was something about the reaper that nagged at him to look closer.

When the draugr appeared in front of him between one heartbeat and the next, Vladimir called on the creature’s essence and yanked it from him, swallowing it down.

The reaper didn’t look surprised when his companion dropped to the ground in a boneless heap. He didn’t take his gaze off Vladimir.

“You’re next, reaper.”

Vladimir didn’t expect a smile from the reaper. Or the sudden pain from within that throbbed like a toothache.

“None but those Of the Bloode may contain those Of the Bloode,” the reaper said. “And now you face your Better, human.”

Vladimir smiled, showing his own teeth. When he’d been fully human, he’d had to deal with those stronger and scarier, those who treated humans like scum.

But Nergal had given Vladimir so much to appreciate.

Time to show the vampire that he didn’t know as much as he thought he did.

“Taste fear, reaper. And meet your new master.”

He took a step closer, eating through distance and time in the blink of an eye, and swallowed down the reaper as easily as he’d taken the draugr.

No mess. No fuss. Just immeasurable power now swimming inside him with all the rest.

With a smile, Vladimir nodded to the lamia and demigods hovering nearby.

“Go fetch the staff. And bring me the dark elf as well. Try not to do too much damage. I’d like him mostly in one piece before I devour his soul.”