Page 67 of Transfiguration
TWENTY-EIGHT
Sam always dreamed when he went to ground, hissleepoften filled with disjointed memories from the past, mixed with pieces of the present. He knew his guys visited as he heard their voices even if he couldn’t see them or really understand what they said, but he’d always been alone in his dreams. Until now.
Luca sat with him on a dock. The night sky above them filled with a dozen lanterns glowing as they rose into the dark. It had been an anniversary trip. Ten years they had celebrated, but something was missing. He blinked, trying to think through the molasses of his tired brain, and vaguely knew he’d gone to ground, but couldn’t remember why.
Luca didn’t stir. Sam turned his way, thinking he’d ask questions. Why was Luca here at all? Luca wasn’t a vampire. He didn’t need to go to ground.
Sam tasted blood. A hint of the scent permeated the air. Familiar, but cooling, a breeze trickled over his skin. Con. That was it. What they were missing. Sam was here with Luca, but without Con. The lantern celebration had been an anniversary of their trio. The mix of darkness, fire, and wind lighting the night with wishes had been profound to him. He’d read about the event in books, but never thought to be part of one. The three of them had spent days creating delicate rice paper lanterns that would float on the wind. That evening they’d released them with the masses of others attending, but sat near the edge of a river, wrapped up in each other, watching the lights swim across the sky carrying hopes and dreams they never dared to voice.
He looked at Luca again, stomach flipping over when he found his pretty boy lover, a burned skeleton in his arms. Panic seized him. Was Con trying to feed them? What had happened? Sam hated how his brain struggled to catch up, the most recent memories the last to clarify.
He slashed his wrist with extended vampire claws and pressed the blood flow to Luca’s burned jaw, praying he would drink, wake, anything. And Luca moved. A shadow of something dark slithering across his face. That wasn’t good. Was it the revenant?
Sam tried again, his blood feeling cold and slick. Luca didn’t drink, nor did he heal when Sam painted him in gore. If he was a vampire now, he would need non-vampire blood. Would Con feed them? Sam held Luca close, finding himself strangely weak.
Was something wrong? He rarely woke at all the first few days in the ground. How long had it been? Was he awake or was it all a dream? He worked to open his eyes and reached for the sensation of dirt cradling his body but felt nothing. Sometimes he would wake and shift before realizing he was awake at all, but this all felt like they were floating in a dream. Or a nightmare. Especially with Luca in his arms, immobile and severely damaged.
He clutched Luca to him but could barely feel the weight of him. Sam wished in that moment they’d convinced Con to become his Focus, maybe then he’d have better clarity? Or be able to reach beyond the touch of the grave to get details on what happened. Was Con safe?
Sam’s heart flipped over in fear. What if Con was gone, too? He felt his revenant stir as the anxiety built. A red haze pooling around them as if blood tainted the snow globe someone trapped them within. Sam struggled to breathe, the weight piling on them, his beast demanding to take control, and promising vengeance for his men. Sam rarely had trouble keeping the revenant controlled. He was a master of walking that line, but in that moment, it rose like a tsunami of dark energy, towering over him with a force he knew he wouldn’t be able to hold back. He was fire after all, not water.
The wave slammed into him, stealing his breath and filling him with a darkness so deep he thought for certain it was the end of all he had ever been. He reacted by demanding flames to rise. Sam poured power into his surroundings like he could change the water he was drowning in, into gas, and free himself from being shoved beneath the endless darkness. He wasn’t water, and neither was his revenant, but the desire of the beast for control forced him to fight. The strength of fire raged, filling him like he’d never felt before.
He blinked beneath the water that wasn’t really wet, seeing light fill the space with fire, lava pooling around him, reaching for him with a deadly hand of heat. He’d never spent the time mastering it like he knew Con did. Sam had suppressed it, much like he did the revenant. He fumbled as the first finger of scorching fire touched him. It didn’t hesitate, wrapping around him with a fist of excruciating pain. He was burning up. The revenant snarled and fought, demanding control so it could save them. Sam feared releasing it would be the end of everything, even while his flesh burned and sizzled, bones melting and reforming beneath the waves of fire.
He tried to scream, but the lava waves slammed down his throat, stealing him away from consciousness for a few minutes as the revenant took control.
Sam opened his eyes feeling sluggish, a blink in time of loss of consciousness and back, like he sometimes did when he got too close to a redout before going to ground, and the revenant almost freed itself. But as he gazed upward, lying prone on his back, he was in a familiar cage. The fighting ring?
He rolled over slowly, thinking maybe everything had been a dream. Had someone clocked him good? He rarely ever took a hit. Part being stupid fast, but it happened from time to time. The noise of the spectators echoed a low roar of annoying sound, nothing really distinguishable, and as he sought to make out their faces, they were nothing but a blur around the exterior of the cage, fingers pressed into the chain links which was a no-no.
The cage was strangely dark, the overhead fluorescent lights having gone out. Sometimes magic did that, burning out modern electronics, but mostly in witch fights. Sam rarely fought witches. Spells were not his strong point, mostly because his amplifying ability took the smallest thing and made it a thousand times what he planned. He shoved himself to his feet, surprised that whomever he was fighting didn’t take that opportunity to beat his ass, but he readied himself for a fight, planting his feet and raising his fists.
He didn’t have to wait long as his opponent came across the space, swinging hard, smashing Sam in the gut and slamming him back into the wall of the cage before Sam could even register the attack. What the hell? He blinked back stars as the crowd’s cheer grew deafening, and he stared up at his opponent.
It wasn’t possible. He sucked in air, thinking he had to be hallucinating. The fighter, pacing and snarling at him, washim. He was fighting himself? Was this some sort of fucked up head game? A witch in disguise?
Sam struggled to his feet, everything hurting, his back singing with pain from the hit into the wall, and ribs telling him he had a few broken. Normally he healed pretty fast, but even getting to his feet, he felt lethargic, and human slow. What the hell?
His other self moved again, a dart to the right. Sam rolled left to avoid the hit, but his body moved like a snail, refusing to respond like he was used to. A fist smashed into his shoulder, whirling him around and slamming him face first into the side of the cage again. Sam spit out blood, choking and gasping for breath. He was a vampire, and technically didn’t need to breathe, but his brain screamed at him for air and he clung to the side of the cage to keep himself upright.
A hand gripped his hair and yanked him away from the wall of the cage, flinging him into the center of the fighting space. Sam’s scalp burned, and he rolled over expecting the attack, but his other self was on him, hand around his throat, squeezing and snarling with fangs and glowing red eyes. Was he fighting his revenant?
Sam lashed out, punching the side of his revenant’s head, but it might as well have been gnats for all the interest that was paid to his attack. He felt human, weak, slow, and the revenant was choking the life from him. What then? Would it take over? Was this some sort of messed up dream to show him how little power he had without his revenant? Or scare him into not using it at all?
Fire burned into Sam’s skin, let loose from his fingertips like a flamethrower. The revenant screamed, but even on fire, he didn’t let go. Sam saw stars. He was dying. Would he die for real? Permanently? He scratched at the revenant’s hands, the flesh peeling from the monster’s arm with the heat of the blaze. Still, it didn’t let go. And Sam remembered Luca’s burned face, his gut flipping over in grief and horror. His gaze strayed to the door of the cage and froze. Luca stood on the other side of the door, worry on his face. He said something, but Sam couldn’t hear him. The noise from the crowd with Sam’s fading heartbeat and brain screaming for breath, too loud to make out anything.
Sam reached for him, his hand stretched toward the door, begging. He didn’t know if it was for help, or just to hold Luca’s hand one last time as the revenant took over. All he knew was that as his vision faded, he stared at Luca, and wished for them to be together again. It was a swirling wave of heat and energy that wrapped around them. Sam felt Luca’s gaze focused on him and fought to give him a smile or some reassurance as he died, hoping maybe they’d be in the afterlife together.
The door opened, and Luca bolted across the distance to slam into the revenant. The fire latched onto Luca as he fought the revenant and Sam screamed as Luca burned, his heart filled with terror. He yanked the fire back, taking it all himself, unable to douse it, and with the fire came the revenant. The beast stumbled as though yanked by an invisible string and slammed down into Sam, vanishing as Sam gasped for breath. The weight of it inside again, heavy and demanding. He gasped, struggling for control, as the fire ate away at his own flesh.
Luca hovered over him, his face lost in shadows, as Sam screamed, yanked into the darkness like the revenant was an anchor dragging him into the abyss. Sam knew his guys teased him about being Superman, but in that moment, drowning in the waves of fire and darkness, his revenant ripping him from all sanity, he thought maybe that wasn’t a good thing. Without the revenant, he was nothing, but with it, he might kill them all when the monster took control.
TWENTY-NINE
Con woke to the songBodiesby Drowning Pool.Let the bodies hit the floor.
He jolted as the whispered refrain turned to a scream. It was part of the song, but he fumbled for his phone, surprised to find the screen read Maxwell Hart. Con had programmed the song for the scary vampire, but from an unnaturally dead sleep to ripped from nightmares by the master vampire mob king should scare the shit out of anyone.