Changes in a Time of War

by Miranda Flairgold

Sequel A Second Chance at Life. Harry is training in bloodmagic/necromancy, he is becoming a basilisk with a thunderbird's soul, there's a plague in europe, demons are about to invade Earth, and Voldemort needs to die. Fae, vampires, new magics and school

21. Chapter 21

Chapter 21

Much applause for the amazing Eirame, who is still translating all of this fic into French, and to Ahlmal for his Spanish translating skills! Hercules has nothing on you!

Okay, so I was gone for a long time. But the last chapter was a pretty good length, and this one is a damn EPIC. I've read whole books shorter than this (not exaggerating). Which do you prefer? Shorter periods between updates or longer updates? (Does not actually matter – I update whenever I get back to civilization (one that has internet)).

Please read at least twice, seriously important chapter here. I mean it. Actually maybe four reads, just to catch everything. A lot questions are being answered and I'm setting up a lot of stuff here – everything contained herein will return later (except Voldemort). (Author is seriously going insane with too-complex fic. Especially since I don't take notes or actually plan this shit out, it just happens).

Chapter 21

"Given that you are playing body-snatchers with a friend of mine, I would appreciate an introduction. Now. Before I decide you're a threat to him and rip your sorry asses out of his mind." Rahkesh said sharply, biting back some harsher words. This was creepy. Haedil's face had gone this terrible blank that was making Rahkesh itch to attack, even though he knew Haedil wasn't being harmed. Instantly aggressive and angry for some reason he wasn't quite sure of. A moment later he remembered why – this was the same governing body that had decided to force a soul reading of someone whom they did not know, had never met, and who had never threatened them. It might not be the same beings – several had been forced into retirement over the whole business, but it was the same group. They had almost killed him.

He hoped the Council really was intent on peace-making. Rahkesh could do a few very small spells without permanent damage, but anything more intense that lighting a candle would cause him real problems right now. Did the Council know that? Had they waited until now to talk so that Rahkesh couldn't fight back magically? Or attack them if he got angry. Probably they had planned this.

The beings currently occupying Haedil's body laughed softly. This time it sounded like many voices, of several genders. Weird. The laughter stopped.

"Your friend is safe. And you, Rahkesh Asmodaeus, you are currently speaking to the primary members of the Fae Council."

Rahkesh relaxed a little, allowing the obvious signs of magic and defensiveness to shrink away. He kept his aggressive posture, relying on the animal instinct to tell him that this was the right thing to do. Distantly he hoped Haedil really was okay with this. Other species often seemed to be okay with things that would have started a new world war had they been suggested to magical humans, and certainly if muggles heard of them.

"And." Rahkesh drawled slowly, sensing for magic, but not watching for facial cues. Haedil's was a perfect blank. So blank, it made Rahkesh's skin crawl. Sygra, arched away from him towards Haedil, had not relaxed her attack stance, nor her continuous slit-eyed hissing and swaying.

"A year ago the then Council members made a mistake Rahkesh. A grave mistake that, while we cannot correct nor undo, we can apologize for." The voices said. "Their decision to read your mind was badly flawed and inappropriate. We would now like to apologize for their/our actions."

"Badly flawed, all right, not quite so fitting as downright bat-shit insane. And how many of those jackasses are still on your happy little Council?" Rahkesh hissed.

"Less than half." Well at least they were being honest, Rahkesh knew that from Rianae.

"What, exactly, did those sons of bitches learn from my soul?" Rahkesh asked, deliberately continuing to provoke them. He wanted to know how much they were willing to take before they snapped back.

"Little." Rahkesh detected some bitterness in the response. "Very little. Your magic turned most of it into mushy color. The magics tried to electrocute the souls of those who tried to review it."

"That recording will, of course, be destroyed." Rahkesh hissed, keeping his smugness in check.

"It already has. And those involved have had their memories permanently cleaned out."

Rahkesh had not expected that. He had never expected the Council would remove their own memories of that reading. He realized then that he was going to have to forgive the Council, or at least appear to. But he didn't want to be their friend, and he didn't want to be nice just yet. A thought materialized, just to let the fae know exactly where he stood. Rahkesh had a place in the world, and shoving it in their faces would probably even raise his standing in their eyes, never mind the implied threat.

"Will you accept our apology?"

"Apology accepted." Rahkesh grunted, turning his head to the side with a careless shrug. He looked back and fixed them with a freezing glare. "Now get out of Akren and release my comrade."

A soft sigh echoed through the air, and Rahkesh felt something not unlike caress against his face, he caught the magic and recognized it. The Headmistress had been listening. His statement was a threat without really being one, sort of. If the Council did not obey the Akren alumni would find out about it, from him personally, and the students and alumni would then know about the Council getting into the school. Even if the Headmistress had probably allowed it the Council did not need the outrage this would generate. The Council could get into a lot of trouble if they didn't leave now. And, of course, Rahkesh was expressing to everyone exactly where his loyalties were, and who the people were he was willing to fight for. This conversation would not be kept private; Haedil would probably show the other Akren fae all of it and Rahkesh assumed it would get around within a few days. This would certainly improve Rahkesh's standing. The fact that he was telling the truth (he had to – he couldn't do the magics to block the Council's truth-reading abilities) just meant he'd get a bonus for the honesty. He meant everything he was implying. The Council chuckled.

"Akren trained and Akren loyal indeed. The older graduates are right to be so fond of you." This was one of them talking, not all. Rahkesh frowned just a little; the voice was familiar…a little like Justin's. One of his parents then.

The Council left. Rahkesh could feel them leave, sense it like a smell vanishing. He felt his own instinctive response to them leaving as well. As they left the Headmistress's presence smiled at him, a thoroughly unnerving sensation, and faded. Haedil's terrible blank look vanished and his eyes blinked furiously as his mind regained its body.

"I can't believe you let them do that to you." Rahkesh said. He was surprised. Just like that a year of anger gone and things more or less set right. Funny how things could happen so fast when everyone involved wanted them to work out right. Just minutes and the year-long standoff was over. Haedil leaned against the carved marble wall and gave Rahkesh a tired look.

"You're opinion of the Council may be a bit biased Rahkesh. For all the mistakes they've made with you they really are an effective governing body. The first Council united the fae tribes and since then the Council has ended our wars and held the tribes together through some rough times. They've eradicated all the major infectious diseases our species has had, and brought every tribe and colony to complete literacy, in multiple languages. We all have excellent health now and almost no one living in real poverty. We've got a system of laws that is consistent, where we used to have different laws for every settlement, and we have lower crime rates than almost anyone else, minus maybe the goblins. The Council has also led the fae into war to protect us from every enemy that has ever tried to go after even the smallest colony, including assassinating dozens to protect the veela recently, until the veela asked them to stop. They're not perfect, they saw you as a curiosity and a possible threat, but they've been very effective, far more so than really almost any human government has ever been. With the change over on the Council these last few months we're expecting good things." Haedil explained tiredly. Rahkesh nodded, knowing that his outlook on the Council was based solely upon the events of the previous year. And Haedil was certainly right about the Council being better most of the human governments Rahkesh knew of, certainly better than what his homeland had had.

"Did you hear all of that?"

"Yes. They could have blocked that but I let them know I would fight it." Haedil said.

"What on earth were they talking about – the older graduates?" Rahkesh asked, confused. Haedil rested his head against the wall and smiled gently.

"Oh Rahkesh haven't you caught on yet? After that book on parselmagic every alumni not already aware took a look at your records, asked some questions about your personality. They're really quite fond of you, everyone is. You're Akren's newest star, our Thunderbird."

Someone chuckled behind him. Rahkesh turned and started to see Daray leaning over his shoulder. He must have been there for some time. Sygra, not wanting speak and bother Rahkesh, was in the vampire's face. Now she relaxed and wrapped around Rahkesh's neck.

"He's entirely correct you know." The vampire said, unashamed to be caught listening. "Never mind that the professors like you and our own Vampire Lord will probably invite you to be his apprentice. Alumni get updates on what's happening at the school, newsletters with information on current students. Just in case they see someone they might want to hire later or some such. You're in many of those."

"There's what?" Rahkesh asked, voice rising incredulously. Haedil laughed.

"We thought you might not know. Since you weren't recruited by any of the usual methods, you just walked in one day and got accepted. And clearly you didn't have enough background information. But we weren't about to tell you. You might get panicked. Everyone thought it best to wait until you felt safe here. It's only stuff that everyone at the school knows anyway, so don't worry over it."

"You what!?"

"Rahkesh you were quite the aggressive fearful thing when you got here." Daray pointed out. "The alumni have been keeping up on your exploits that made the newsletter. You're animagus certainly made it in, so did your basilisk transformation, and you're completely destroying a never-before-altered potion in the basement safe cavern during Silas experiment. And both of us made it in for our fast advances in bloodmagic. And recently your issues with the fae have been there. And your involvement with the MLFC – you're time travel, demon fighting, having a loyal demon/vampire elder friend, and your disagreement with Voldemort who's one of the other basilisks, your involvement with the British Ministry raid, your involvement in the portal fiasco in Mexico, all of that. They don't publish anything that might possibly be harmful, and they only publish what most of the students, or the general public, already know or can learn. However it has given everyone something interesting to follow this last year or so. The alumni are quite proud of having you as one of ours."

Rahkesh shook his head in wonder. And he hadn't caught on? It seemed very weird indeed, but also did make some sense. Even after graduation Akren alumni stayed close with each other and with current students. Being trained at Akren made you part of a very large family. A family that might kill you, but was also absolutely loyal against the rest of the world. It was a weird dichotomy of violence and loyalty.

"Come on," Haedil said, slapping Rahkesh's shoulder, "dinner will be ready by now." Rahkesh, still thinking, fell in between him and Daray. Finally he decided to forget about his apparent and previously unknown notoriety.

"How'd it go?" He asked Daray.

"Very well." Daray said smugly. "I think I'd better wait a week until I go over the next one again, just to make sure it all settled. Especially because these ones are the ground stage for the whole set and they change the way I can do magic."

"True, but I think I'll still try to finish my magic directing one within six days at least." Rahkesh said. His magic was already starting to settle some so it must have gone really well. He'd meditate some later and examine how the runes were working and how his magic was flowing through them.

"Was there any damage to your knives?" Haedil asked them both. Haedil was planning to try the same ritual in a few weeks.

"No damage that I could find. Professor Darkwind was around with Professor Namach and they didn't sense anything either." Rahkesh said.

"They both came to watch you?" Daray asked, grinning.

"Yeah."

"Namach really is going try to convince you to become his next apprentice." Haedil said. "Assuming of course any of us live long enough to care."

"Thought about that any?" Daray asked.

"Living or deciding whether or not to be turned into a vampire?" Rahkesh asked, being thick deliberately.

"Don't be dense. You wouldn't have to become a vampire to be his apprentice." Haedil said.

"What?" Rahkesh asked.

"Rahkesh you've made your opinion on the matter pretty obvious." Daray drawled, "I doubt Namach would try to convince you otherwise. Not all of his apprentices have been vampires, the majority yes, but not all. Merlin was as human as you are."

"Merlin?"

"You didn't know?"

"I do now."

"Merlin was a friend of some alumni when he was a kid. Akren was pretty new then but growing in power. He never came here but Namach trained him some, and Merlin had to leave Britain at one point for some reason or other, he stayed with Namach for a few years. However he and Namach had some serious disagreements about whether or not prophecies actually exist – Namach is adamant that they don't. They were always good friends though. Namach officiated at Merlin's funeral, the second one I mean, not the one where he faked it."

"He didn't fake it. He just didn't stay dead. He was one of the few non-necromancers to manage that." Rahkesh corrected.

"Whatever. He's also had a few fae apprentices, though I don't think there have been any werewolves."

"Hmm."

"So?"

"I think we're going to live." Rahkesh said, deliberately picking the wrong question, Daray actually growled. Haedil was quietly laughing. "Therefore I don't have to think about the other one now." Rahkesh added, grinning at Daray's shocked look. To a vampire having the Vampire Lord possibly wanting him as an apprentice would be a hugely major thought. Rahkesh was shrugging it off.

"Rahkesh. Do have any idea how important this is?" Daray asked angrily.

"Yes. I'm just procrastinating."

"Well stop." Daray said. "It'll cause enough of a fuss that he'd even consider it. Though that shouldn't happen you can bet someone will get angry. No need to insult everyone by making them think you don't even care. Especially since there is no faster way to learn bloodmagic than from the person who invented most of it."

Rahkesh shrugged, he really didn't want to bother with thinking that far ahead just yet. "I'll start thinking about it." He agreed, if only just to get Daray to calm down. "but I can't really answer until after I graduate anyway and he knows that. And that's assuming any of us are alive enough to care."

XX

"No destroying anything. Practice spells in containment wards or on some of the targets." Ally said as the group entered her rooms. Rahkesh grabbed one of the beanbag chairs before Nuri could. The panther growled, lashed his tail, and headed for Ally's bed to stretch out in the sun.

"If he claws that up you're in trouble." Ally told Silas.

"He's perfectly house trained. Silas said, "grandmother wouldn't have it any other way."

Nuri yowled at them and hit his long tail on Ally's bed.

"Could we use him for practice?" Daray asked.

"Only if I can use Satan." Silas replied. Nuri actually hissed. "Relax Nuri, I wouldn't let him hurt you."

Daray, ever one to test boundaries, tossed a hex that would take Nuri's fur off. Nuri rose, snarling. His fur flashed gold and the spell rocketed back at Daray. Daray hit the floor, the spell flashed overhead, and left a gaping black hole in the wall.

"Never seen him do that before." Rahkesh commented as nonchalantly as possible as they all stared. Nuri growled, then curled up and began washing his chest with long strokes of his pink tongue.

"Daray…" Ally's low warning made Rahkesh and Silas back away fast. Daray flinched away as Ally's slowly took one of the huge axes down and began twirling it. The vampire began repairing the wall while everyone else found seats. Silas went to Nuri at once and began looking for damage. Nuri rolled onto his back, put his paws across Silas's face, and purred.

"Did you teach him that?" Ally asked. "Or was that your magic?"

"Neither, and I've never seen any of that gold-stuff before. He can shake off stunners, but that's a new trick." Silas said, tugging at one of Nuri's ears. "What was that all about?"

Nuri rolled back over and bent in half to clean his back claws, ignoring Silas completely. Silas's eyes got a vague glazed look as he connected to Nuri telepathically as much as he could. Nuri tossed his head and growled. Silas blinked rapidly and woke up.

"He just can." Silas said with a shrug. Rahkesh reached out gently for the vampire's mind the elf blood he swallowed? Not everyone here was aware of that. Silas shrugged again, though his eyes had again gotten a glazed look. Rahkesh guessed he was communicating with Professor Namach.

"See? No harm." Daray said, finishing with the wall. Silas came back to the present before his cousin noticed anything. Ally began inspecting her repaired wall while bickering with Daray over his spell casting technique.

Rahkesh was already flipping open a book of dark arts. Curses mostly. They had a morning off from everything else to make up lists of spells that might work on demons. He had a list of stuff he knew by heart, but he had been slowing down on his studying since the semester had started because of everything else happening. He really needed a few days to just work on spells. Fortunately they had two days for this. No classes, except bloodmagic/necromancy.

Ally flopped down next to Nuri and dragged over a massive black book. "I've got this curse I've been waiting to try." She said, holding it up.

"Go on." Rianae said.

"It's a curse that ruptures the intestines, but it get through the skin without damage by following the body's nerve channels. I thought perhaps, since they're immortal and such tough rugged fellows, one of our vampires might volunteer…?"

Rianae, Daray and Silas all put up shields and looked at each other, then Ally, warily. Justin, curled up next to Rianae, lurched away quickly to avoid any explosion.

There was a long nervous silence, then Haedil started laughing.

"Better to just grab the next one who tries to drink your blood and give it a go." He said.

"Can we find potions and stuff besides spells?" Daray asked, "they didn't say we couldn't."

"The potions students are doing that." Tyler said, arriving late.

"Tyler!" Silas said, "you're still alive?"

"No need to sound disappointed." Tyler joked as she collapsed onto the last beanbag chair, looking completely exhausted.

"We're not. But no one's seen you since last year." Rahkesh said quickly and Silas rolled his eyes.

"Busy. I've been taking extra potions classes, at Akren and at other schools. I want to get my Potions Mastery by winter break." Tyler said. Rahkesh mentally calculated, by winter break would mean Tyler would make it by twenty, there were only two score or so who had managed that. She looked like it was taking everything she had. Surely an early Mastery wasn't quite worth that. "I studied right through the summer with some of the alumni Potions Masters.

"Winter break huh? Pity we'll all be dead." Daray said. "What stuff have the potions students come up with?"

Tyler grinned nastily, "you'll see. The demons will regret ever setting foot on Earth."

"Go on, you can't stop there." Rahkesh said.

"We have Strawlime." Tyler stated simply, as if that answered everything, which it did. Akren's own personal psychopathic serial killer was, while an excellent Professor, more than a little scary. With an open season on demons to kill however many he wanted with whatever method he wanted Strawlime was undoubtedly in his element. "He's been going on for weeks about murderers and serial killers having a place in the world after all. He went and dragged out all of his old experiments to test on demons."

"Do we have enough prisoners for that?" Silas asked.

"No. But Strawlime nagged Professor Namach into getting him fifty or so of the bodies from that little fiasco in Mexico. We've been testing stuff and recording the effects. It isn't terribly realistic, since they're dead and all, but we're getting a good idea of how to engineer a potion to get around the scale armor." Tyler explained.

XX

"Four days. Is your basilisk going into another crazy streak?" Namach asked dryly, watching Rahkesh stagger slightly. Rahkesh righted himself enough to shrug. He'd pushed himself to finish his magic directing ritual. It had gone flawlessly, but his skin hurt and his body was letting him know in no uncertain terms that going through this so soon had not been the best choice.

"You smell stable enough I guess." Namach said, "maybe a bit crazy." He was breathing deeply and Rahkesh wondered how many stages Namach's scent-based bloodmagic had. And how many variations for specific things. His ability to smell out bloodmagic and even exactly how it functioned was extreme. Namach could learn more about anything involving bloodmagic through a deep breath than most Bloodmages could in a week of study. Of course, the vampiric abilities and inherent magic must have helped.

Rahkesh had intended to give it a few more days, but Voldemort had raided an abandoned veela enclave the day before. He'd had, apparently, burned one library and stolen another. And the fae were pissed. It didn't help that the Sirens, missing since before the start of the Conclave, had yet to be found. The merefolk claimed they had found sea demon magic in the area, and scat. The Harpies had descended on the islands to investigate, only to turn back when Voldemort's spies were found sneaking around the only remaining Harpy colony in Britain. Which was very, very bad. The Dark Lord Grindelwald had run afoul of the harpies once, and only once. They had decimated his supporters early on and delayed his rise to power by several years. The harpies had chased off Voldemort's spies, but Voldemort had cleverly planned a little fight and had succeeded in collecting some harpy blood. Very powerful stuff. The harpies had retaliated by annihilating Voldemort's remaining werewolf supporters that morning. Voldemort and the fae were coming seriously unglued. And now it was only a matter of time. Rahkesh had to get rid of Voldemort soon. And he didn't feel comfortable attempting it without at least the first stage of his magic directing ritual.

"Seems the knife managed it just fine." Professor Darkwind said to Professor Namach. "That should be indicative of his overall state."

"He is standing right here, and could have told you the he is just fine." Rahkesh said in a soft sigh. "I'm exhausted and my skin aches, but the magic is already flowing smoothly."

Professor Darkwind wandered back to his metalmagic rooms without another word. Rahkesh watched him go and glanced over at Namach. Darkwind was just weird sometimes.

"He's always like that." Namach said to the unasked question. "Always has been, even when he was still a student here."

"I really do feel fine." Rahkesh said.

"I can smell that. I can also smell that your blood is changing again." Namach said. Rahkesh winced as the ancient vampire put up anti-eavesdropping wards as he spoke.

"Again?"

"It never stopped. That dragon's blood is far from done with you. It's just constrained by your magics, your animal forms, your species, mind, and all the injuries you've had since drinking it. You've been changing slowly ever since it got into your system. It slowed whatever is happening for some long stretches, and then it's done some other stuff really fast. That thunderbird would have taken longer to show up if the dragon's blood hadn't thrown it out of your mind to make room. I can't find any real system to what has been happening to you, since the dragon's blood has only had one real obvious direct effect – your eyes. The rest is secondary to chemical and magical changes that have no obvious rhyme or reason. I suspect there are some really direct obvious effects, but I'd need to test your blood on a vampire to confirm."

"I'd rather not."

"I, also, suspect that might not be in anyone's best interests." Namach agreed. "Xanthius and I have agreed on some of the clearer pieces, one; your blood is as lethal to vampires as regular dragon's blood unless they manage to simply overpower it, two; your blood is flammable when you choose to make it, three; your blood sheds poisons and most toxins rather than mixing and absorbing – like oil and water, four; your blood clots in wounds really fast, five; your blood is/can be highly electrified, six; your blood cells don't die when you're transmitting magic through death and back, seven; your blood can reabsorb electricity that has been through death and back with no ill effects."

"That sounds like a lot of changes."

"Not really. The same could be done with bloodmagic in a few years of hard work, and a suitably strong bloodmage could probably brute-force your body and magic to as you were before, though only very temporarily. The thunderbird was already part of you; the dragon's blood just forced it to appear early. Now I smell the changes speeding up again." Namach grinned, "and of course the Vashora probably scented that as well at some point." Rahkesh groaned. "Don't worry about it, if the dragon's blood was harmful to you we'd know."

"Define "harmful"." Rahkesh said. Namach ignored him.

"I do suspect we'll see some interesting effects soon." Namach said, without enthusiasm. "And I must admit I'm not looking forward to seeing what's next. I have a few suspicions of what will happen to you soon, and I have to admit I'm not thrilled at the prospect."

"Going to finally tell me what you're worried about?"

"No."

"Thanks." Rahkesh snarled, voice an almost-hiss and sounding totally unnatural. Bizarrely, and completely out of character, Namach did not react to the blatant disrespect.

"If it happens, you'll know." Namach said with a sigh. "Let the other students know we don't have class today, Nvara will announce a meeting point for bloodmagic students later to make a schedule for reviewing the bloodmagic defenses. I only have so many golems and I suspect I need to do some work on my own bloodmagics."

After the ancient had vanished Rahkesh paused to wonder if Namach was working on his bloodmagics in anticipation of dealing with whatever was going to happen to Rahkesh. What could possibly worry the world's reigning Master Bloodmage?

XX

"Ten meters acid-resistant titanium. It's been coated forty times with ten millimeters of laced Diamond Blue." The witch leading them said, pointing to the massive walls. Rahkesh didn't know enough about the Russian military to read what her rank was from her uniform, but all the bits of gold and decorations had to count for something. She was carrying a wand, a curved knife, and a muggle handgun. Plus six vials attached in a row to her belt that Rahkesh would bet had potions in them. The soldiers they passed were wearing official looking uniforms that were in the muggle style, rather than the long somewhat cumbersome robes the British Aurors had worn. Rahkesh thought the muggle uniforms were probably easier to move in, but maybe not as good overall armor and not as good for concealing things.

Diamond Blue was a potion, electric blue in color, that was as hard as actual diamond. It was a recent invention by an Akren alumnus Potions Master. Very thick when brewed right, when it dried it sealed to itself in crystalline structure that looked, from above, slightly lace-like. Lasers could get through it, eventually, but not a whole lot else. The structure meant that if it was scraped the adjacent bits actually slid to fill it in, and because it was magical it then resealed. It would take a very long time, of continuously working at it, to get through four hundred millimeters.

The Russians had requested that he and Sharahak take a tour of their "demon-proof" facility. It was an immense bunker designed to hold five thousand for up to two years during any attack. Rahkesh had never seen any sort of military installation and was curious to see what the Russians had come up with. Sharahak was just anxious about their chances of survival.

The perimeter had been covered with muggle technologies. Cameras, laser guided cannons, remote controlled tanks, landmines, pit traps with spikes, and remote controlled missiles with the usual muggle explosives. Closer in had been threadmagic wards woven so tight that the bedrock no longer fully existed and nothing grew. The threadmagic had been amazing, done in over a thousand varieties of thread, by dozens of Threadmages. Each with individual knot systems and patterns, some wards offensive, others defensive. All sharing power flows, but able to cut off a damaged set, like amputating a limb, and then sealing it away in order to save the whole. It was an amazing system, and with the center for the wards inside the building it would be almost impossible to remove. The threadmagic center was inside, but linked to the outside threads by soulmagic rather than thread, so as not to compromise the physical barriers. Someone, probably more than one someone, had given up their souls to create this place. Rahkesh suspected they had been volunteers; the public was very much aware of everything that was happening and finding a volunteer for a sacrifice like that could not have been too hard. There was always some brave person who was for some reason unable to do anything in an actual fight, but who was ready to sacrifice their souls so that others had a chance. Especially if their family was promised placement in the bunker when the time came.

"Heat resistant?" Sharahak asked, tapping the shell.

"Yes. We poured raw magma on it." She answered. Rahkesh wondered how they'd gotten that stuff. "There is a layer of threadmagic wards, plus the metalmagic wards and bloodmagic wards. Even if the demons get themselves some amazing lasers it won't do them any good. The Mages outdid themselves. They've got it all rigged up so that everything reflects right back out."

"Demons don't have any such technology." Sharahak said. "But should the worst happen they could conceivably learn it from the muggles. However their personal magic is generally completely incompatible with…ahh…circuits." Sharahak said, struggling for the word. With a lot of help from Namach he was catching up awfully fast, but he still took time to figure out all the muggle technology.

"That is a good thing to know, the less they improve from interacting with muggles the better." Their guide said. "It's also radiation resistant. We grabbed some fresh stuff from the muggles nuclear power plants. Our government and theirs are pretty close. They didn't mind not having to ever hear about a ton of hot waste." She led them through the sliding doors. "Three sets of gates. No two can be open at once. There's another layer of the titanium and the space between is filled with shells from Golden Fairy cocoons. We powdered them, superheated them, mixed in liquid sulfur, shaped the stuff into springs and let it harden. Just over four hundred million springs. The whole structure can move twelve meters any direction and bounce back. That should give us good chances during just about any magic-induced earthquake or impact. And there's not a natural fault line for a long way around."

"How fast is the recoil?" Rahkesh asked, thinking about whiplash.

"Slow. Huge pressure bends the springs to a certain point, after that the webbing from the cocoons resists, more resistance for more pressure. Slow impact at the end and a slow slide back."

"An arch demon can do about as much damage as a large Siberian IceScale." Sharahak said, referring to the northern-most dragon species found in Russia. A species descended in a convoluted route from Ice Dragons, like Ice Dragons they grew throughout their lives. "A really old powerful one could do a good deal more, they always grow." Rahkesh filed that away, arch demons worked a little like the older dragon species.

"Brute strength won't get them far here." The hallways could use some work, Rahkesh thought. Everything was grey, puke orange, and dark blue. Mind-numbing really. The main corridor floor was marked with red, green, blue, and purple lines. They had passed the turnoffs for the others, and now followed the red, which ran down the middle of the floor.

The red line led them to the command center. This was a rectangle room with plain white walls and a score or so of seats. A magical monitoring system took up much of two walls. Small crystals with labels glowed, blinked, or were dark. Half a dozen technicians were moving around. Rahkesh was surprised to see what appeared to be a variant of a muggle keyboard hooked up to several stations. Clearly not actually electrical it was some other system he was unfamiliar with. However the potion-filled glowing screens clearly had some sort of information scrolling slowly across them in a very computer-like fashion. Rahkesh didn't readily speak any languages but English, Chachapoyan, and Parseltongue, but Sharahak was studying the readouts, clearly recognizing something.

"The floor lines show the way to all the civilian and military centers." Rahkesh turned to see a small heavy man with sparkling dark eyes and a thick goatee beside him. Like their previous guide he was sporting a ridiculous number of gold bits and colorful decorations. "Red for the military units stationed here, purple for the laboratories and work stations for the magical defenses, green and blue for different sections of the civilian quarters. Civilians can't go into red or purple only areas unless carrying the correct magical tag and access code."

A system that did make some sense, Rahkesh thought. You didn't need civilians running around during a war. And while it might seem odd to separate the Russian military from some of the areas where the more intense magical undertakings were done, that was a sort of paranoid security measure; Guild members could not fully be part of any military. No Guild member, Threadmage Guild or any other, could join any of the world's military's, except as a consultant.

It was a bit of a problem for many countries. If their best and brightest went as far as they could in a magical system they would have to join one of the Guilds, if they did they could no longer be drafted. If they didn't then that country didn't have as many quasi-patriotic mages to call upon and they looked less educated compared with other nations.

The system had originated because those who trained for so long in a certain branch of magic didn't like being told what to do by their country of origin, and had wanted some sort of safety from politics. Those from Akren were already safe from being called home to go to war. Others had not been. So the Guilds had decided to take all of their members out of all military service, except as consultants, or if the Guild decided to take a side – which had yet to happen.

Of course "consultant" was a term with a wide variety of meanings. During the Second World War several necromancers had actively fought, with the knowledge of their muggle governments, their Guild, and under the orders of their Ministry of Magic. What Guild members decided to do was their business. The Guild was there to say that they could not be forced to fight. Some Guilds also had rules about recalling their members if the Guild voted to be impartial or voted to take a specific side. Obviously if any Guild member was killed fighting for one side or the other then there would be no retaliation. But should a Guild member be killed any other way, even accidentally, then the rest of the Guild could usually be counted on to turn the nation responsible into a bloody smoking ruin. Fortunately for everyone this situation hadn't yet happened.

For those who were too active in the wars their nation might be fighting the Guild would sometimes order them to desist. And Rahkesh had a suspicion that some of the Guilds had a habit of assassinating these dissidents if they didn't follow orders, if only to keep the world wide power balance somewhat predictable or stable. So for the Russians to be wary about letting people who would probably be Guild members into their military command center was understandable. What was less understandable was what made the Russians think they could keep any Guild member out if they wanted to get in.

"A sensible system," Rahkesh said approvingly, seeing as the man was waiting for him to respond.

"No it isn't. If we're living down here hiding like scared rabbits with a wolf above the burrow there won't be enough of us left to care about stuff like that, and damn the Guilds." The little man snapped at him. Sharahak was taken aback, Rahkesh managed not to react at all.

"I suspect that anyone doing a tricky bloodmagic attack pattern with offensive operations beyond the bunker will appreciate not having to use too many locks on the room to keep out curious children." Rahkesh said dryly, hiding his surprised reaction very well.

The man squinted up at him, "depends doesn't it? If we're going to be able to save only a small portion of magical humans, do we choose children?"

"In interesting matter to consider," Rahkesh agreed. "I assume you've put it to the Conclave?"

"Yes we have." Their original guide interrupted before her counterpart could say anything. "They're discussing it today."

"Do you know how many facilities like this are operational?" Rahkesh asked.

"None. This one isn't supplied yet. By the time the demons can attack again there should be enough such places for fifty thousand, minimum, or maybe even more, of all magical species, worldwide." She said. "Some spaces are being built specially for centaurs, merefolk, and fairies, the rest of us have similar enough needs to manage. So it'll be at least fifty thousand spaces that have to be divided between species. Realistically we're expecting more like a hundred thousand spaces, but some of the other nations are being secretive about what they're building, or have already built. Then each species chooses who to send. We're working everything out assuming fifty thousand, if there are more then that's just good news."

"I imagine that's some debate." Rahkesh said, wondering if he could go to see.

"Fist fights in the halls." The man said nodding. "Conclusion at noon, our time, was to divide up the slots based on percentage of total magical population. Of all sentient species – which are of course all MLFC members – the percentage of each is being calculated right now. Humans will probably wind up with the most since we are a larger percentage of the total magical species, and then we need to decide who we choose to save if the worst happens."

"If everyone is sharing knowledge and jointly building these bunkers then individual countries won't be deciding for themselves." Rahkesh observed, "all humans will have to agree."

"Exactly." The man, who Rahkesh guessed was probably a General, though he hadn't given his name yet, said. "Should be an interesting meeting."

That, Rahkesh decided, was the understatement of the month. A moment later he felt a vampiric presence, the main doors opened and the Master of Moscow, Vladimir Konovalov, entered talking with a human, and followed by two vampires.

"Afternoon Sharahak, Rahkesh." Konovalov said. "This is General Andropov of the Russian Magical Air Force."

"How exactly are the vampires going to handle living in a bunker?" Rahkesh asked, "I'm assuming not everyone in here will be keen to share their blood." All three humans grinned a little.

"Not a problem." Konovalov answered, fangs flashing. "We're collecting right now. We'll have enough stored for a decade. Our needs will be much less than any other species in here. More difficult is getting the werewolves enough space to transform, since we can't count on storing enough wolfsbane potion. Even the best stuff requires just the right conditions to be stored for any real length of time."

"The best solution would be to have most of the humans become vampires, then we might have room for more – we won't need as much space to grow or store foods." One of Konovalov's aides said.

"Uh huh. Or we could just only keep a few vampires. It's not like you need genetic diversity or anything like that. One little bloodsucker would be enough to bring back the population. Not that anyone really needs vampires around, since you're just parasites and all." General Andropov said cheerfully, grinning as one of the two aides growled at him. Konovalov just looked amused.

"A few of us were worried the Tristan Namach might do just that." He said. "It would not be without some precedent. Or, perhaps, he would only keep a few of us around, the useful intelligent ones." A flick of his eyes to his outspoken aide generated a cringe.

Of course "useful and intelligent" would include Konovalov who was a former apprentice of Namach's and was one of the few vampires who actually carried some of the ancient's blood, making Konovalov, Hadrian, and Anandi sort-of siblings. Namach had not turned Konovalov, but he had killed the one who had (he'd had to, to get Konovalov) and had used his own blood to remove any lingering connection Vladimir might have had to the bloodline he came from. Because vampires could be somewhat controlled by their direct ancestors, and Namach really was ridiculously powerful in the vampiric magic systems, his control over those carrying his blood was much stronger than normal. He basically owned Konovalov, even though Konovalov was one of the most powerful vampires around.

Rahkesh wondered if Namach had considered taking the opportunity to get rid of a good portion of his own species. He had done it before, by going after half of them personally. But…

"If he wanted to get rid of most of the vampires the way to do it would not involve letting the demons gather a larger slave force than they already have." Rahkesh pointed out.

"We are worried about that." General Andropov said. His two comrades, whose names Rahkesh still didn't know, nodded. "Everyone we can't fit into a shelter will be captured or killed – this is a worst case scenario we're discussing – and the captured ones will be very useful to the demons."

"It might be a good idea to wipe the memories of those who helped build the shelters, should they not then get chosen to stay in them." Sharahak said.

"We're also considering mass producing a free suicide potion." The woman said.

"The werewolves have one. The pack from Los Angeles is producing and distributing it." Rahkesh said. Liam, one of the Akren student werewolves, had developed several injection systems, in case he was somehow tied up or immobilized.

"Does Akren have its own shelters?" The still unnamed man asked. Rahkesh gave no outward expression; inwardly he grimaced, wondering if the Russians had invited him here just to ask that.

"Not yet. The Alumni Association has not yet decided on how best to build one, or if we should. Naturally the school's usual protections will keep us fairly secure, but they're not indestructible." Rahkesh said, lying easily. One of Konovalov's aides rolled his eyes. Rahkesh saw Konovalov blink once, the vampire behind him stiffened, then turned, took two steps, and vanished. Rahkesh wondered what would happen to him, probably nothing good.

"Should the demons come after the Academy it would be a pity to lose such a facility." Rahkesh wished he knew who this guy was. This was getting absurd.

"The demons will quickly find they have more than they can handle, should they focus on us." Rahkesh said. "It seems they are intelligent enough to try something else." He didn't want to continue that conversation. He had no instructions on what to tell or not to tell the Russians. And most everything at Akren was a secret from all outsiders all the time. "You're outer security system seems like it will be a good defense against the demons." Rahkesh said, "I'm a little concerned that we don't know enough about their magics to know if they can get through." He looked over to Sharahak.

"I suspect they will find a way through eventually. I know a lot about the magics they use in civilian life, but not much at all about what their sorcerers use in battle. None of the enchantments or spells I know of would get through what you have here, but I suspect they have some that will manage it. They got into Atlantis eventually." Sharahak pointed out. "I would suggest adding bloodmagic wards, along with thread and metal magic. The difference in their magic will mean that they to cut through rather than undo those. I don't think they can follow your magical connections well enough to get inside those. Though I may be wrong, they have some very clever sorcerers."

"I don't suppose we could get a copy of what Akren is using on their fortresses?" The small man asked dryly.

"Given that we've nothing designed against demons, it would be wasted effort." Rahkesh said calmly, wondering just who this was and who he worked for. And what made him think he could just ask questions like that.

"Have you discovered nothing from the demons whose bodies you've been studying?"

"Nothing of use to keeping them out of a place." Rahkesh answered, this time almost honest.

"So every possibility must be planned for. Have the bloodmagic wards already been activated?"

"I was unaware we had such wards." Rahkesh said dryly. "Has Moscow activated their wards?"

"Not yet."

"They'd be better off adding some metalmagic." Sharahak suggested.

"And threadmagic." Rahkesh agreed. "Demons don't have access to the fibers we do, do they?" He asked Sharahak.

"No, I don't think so." Sharahak said.

"More threadmagic and metalmagic then." Konovalov said, "you ought to contact the goblins." He told the humans. "Thank you Sharahak, Rahkesh."

The woman who had guided them in led them out again. Behind them Konovalov spun to face the smaller of the two men.

"Just what sort of death wish do you have? Trying to get information on the Akren Academy defenses?" The vampire Lord snarled. The man opened his mouth to reply, but Konovalov cut him off before he could start. "I am perfectly aware of who you work for, Viktor, and your report home will include a recommendation to cease all efforts at discovering Akren's defense systems. Else I will be sending you home, in a shoebox."

"My orders-"

"Are, apparently, to insult any Akren representative you meet." Konovalov snapped. "Do your superiors wish to determine what it takes to make us consider them enough of a threat to do away with?"

"Now see here-"

"None of you will be seeing much of anything from the inside of a coffin Viktor. Whatever else you are doing to determine Akren's battle readiness will end immediately." Konovalov said sharply. With a swish of his heavy cloak the vampire was gone, his aide following at once. As soon as they had vanished General Andropov also turned on his comrade.

"You dumbass. There are a million ways to go about finding out what Akren is up to. That was possibly the least subtle attempt I've ever seen."

"It would be nice to know how many they can save. If all of their graduates and students take refuge together the rest of the world loses its best fighting force."

"I should think that if anyone survives it will be them, and their chances are better together. The Alumni Association has probably already thought this through. Tell Moscow that they'd be better off asking Marvin Gale himself, rather than trying to get a student to spill anything. Did you think he'd just tell you everything they've got?"

"He might have."

"He might have thought you a threat and turned you into a pile of sludge." The General said harshly. "And we'll be getting a nasty inquiry from the AAA. You can bet that this will be reported. Marvin Gale will be in Moscow tomorrow demanding to know what we were thinking, and he'll probably have Rahkesh's memories of this to back him up. You'd best head home."

X

The Air Force General was right. Not fifteen minutes after getting back to Akren Rahkesh was in Marvin Gale's office. The werewolf Bloodmage had his office, and all of the AAA offices, in a small discreet brick building designed in a slightly Victorian style located next to one of the Akren safe houses. It was possible to access this location from dozens of points around the world, but the magical keys used to do so automatically closed everything down if the user wasn't from Akren.

Marvin was the same as Rahkesh had always seen him. Old faded jeans and a battered sweater, combat boots with the laces starting to fray. The only things not carrying an old dirty look were the vast array of bloodmetal pieces all over him. Earrings, necklace, rings, bracelets, armbands, gloves, pins, and buttons made of bloodmetal.

"I didn't tell him a damn thing!" Rahkesh snapped angrily. This was the third time Marvin had asked. The old loner werewolf was pacing in front of the larger windows that looked out onto an open meadow with a fountain of marble eagles near the house.

"They're probably just motivated by fear. Everyone is panicking about this." The other person in the room was a human. An older woman with black-streaked gray hair in a dark blue suit with large glasses perched on her nose. She was Greta Milner, the vice president of the Akren Alumni Association, a Third Tier Threadmage and, before being elected, the owner of a business that produced magical shoes. Marvin worked more on politics and finances, Greta more on the ongoing Alumni operations that included everything from wards on the safe houses, to classes offered to the public, to managing meetings between alumni business associates at secure locations, and the security side of things. Their responsibilities overlapped a lot but they had made an excellent team and had led the AAA for more than a decade.

"Be pretty dumb to not be. I'm amazed that everyone has been so calm so far. Giving the public the news that they're going to be killed or enslaved, and getting no extreme reactions yet?" Rahkesh said. He was just waiting to hear about riots. People didn't react rationally when told they were going to die a horrible death. Being told that the government was making secure bunkers, but couldn't build enough for everyone, was bound to get the conspiracy theorists up in arms over corruption in the selection process. Rahkesh just didn't understand the calm so far.

"Anyone overly given to dramatics got that over with when the plague was dropped on us." Greta replied. "Relax Marvin. Send them a suitably snarky note stating our disapproval and telling them to mind their own business."

Marvin turned back to face Rahkesh with a weary sigh.

"All right lad, sit down. I suppose the Russian Army is hardly in a position to want to attack Akren."

"Do we actually have room for all of the currents students and alumni?" Rahkesh asked. "We're getting to work on the bloodmagic wards on the subterranean complex tomorrow." He said when Marvin looked at him sharply.

"It did actually have a name at one point." Greta said, "the original was Safe House Zero, but that got dropped at some point. It was later called the Dark Annex, for some reason nobody liked it much. When I was there we just called it The Pit. I think the last graduating class to work on it renamed it The Cave. And yes, we do have room for everyone." Rahkesh was surprised, he'd expected maybe they had room for half, but everyone? The underground complex must be much larger than he'd been told.

From a side office there came a harsh chirping sound. Marvin grunted and spun away into the next room. He picked up a headset that looked like muggle headphones, with a small microphone attached to speak into, and put it on.

"It's got to be midnight there Chad, what's going on?" Marvin scratched a fingernail over a set of threads against the wall and partial silencing wards set it with a faint glitter.

Greta shrugged at Rahkesh and continued. "All the students will be working on the Cave the next few weeks. Nvara has upped our schedule. She wants it ready for use in one month." Greta said. "Most of the alumni think she's being too ambitious, but we can better prepare the wards on it with everything operational. Easier to avoid future magical conflicts. Within a month it won't matter who knows that we have that place anyway. Most of the magical governments know we have some sort of worst-case-disaster bunker. And they'll be able to remove us from all of their own efforts to decide who to save."

"REPEAT THAT!" Marvin barked suddenly, snapping the silencing wards. Rahkesh and Grate glanced over as the werewolf's face went an angry dark red. "I see. Very well. Alert all your Alumni. And Chad…do it right. Leave no one alive." Marvin dropped the headset back into its holder and crossed back into the main office in two long strides.

"You know Alastor Moody?" He asked. Rahkesh nodded. "Get back to Akren and contact him. I don't know what spies or agents he's got right now, but he'd better get them all out of Voldemort's camp before dawn. That so-called "Dark Lord" just abducted a half dozen fae, including three of ours. The fae alumni are taking him out an hour after dawn."

Rahkesh left the office, trying not to run. Behind him Marvin shut the door and turned to Greta. "We'll be receiving connections to whatever communications network they're using in the next two hours. Send out a broadcast to all of our alumni in Britain, if they want to help they should ask the Fae Council, otherwise they need to stay away."

Greta watched as Rahkesh stepped across the boundary of the wards and vanished. "Do you think he'll finally do it?"

"Yeah. The fae don't know they can't kill Voldemort. But our agent has said he's got his base warded with parselmagic. That means they need Rahkesh to get in. He'll be first in, and Namach tells me he's more than ready to take out Voldemort." Marvin grimaced, "be nice to only have one enemy to deal with. Stocklir killed off the last of the Chinese dark wizards, and Europe has finished getting their anti-magical-being seizure out of their system, by tomorrow we'll only have the demons to worry about."

X

I hope you remember our agreement involving the evil minions. Sygra hissed in his ear just before the portkey took.

The one where you can kill as many as you want? Rahkesh teased. Soon, soon he would facing off against Voldemort, again. And this time Voldemort wasn't immortal, Rahkesh had a plan, he would be on the attacking side, and he had Voldemort seriously outdone.

"I'll just mention this in passing to the fae eh?" Moody asked.

"And a thought that maybe they ought to stay away a bit, especially since they'll be killed in the backlash when Voldemort dies if they're close." Rahkesh said, it was lie, but it would keep the fae away while he worked. He had not had time to figure out exactly what to do regarding Harry Potter. He had a plan. It was rolled up into a marble attached magically to the inside of his sleeve. It was a very rough plan. And it depended upon no one being too close.

You remember your part? He asked Sygra in turn.

Yes. They can't get too close to you and I need to interrupt their vision so they only get a few glimpses. Not a problem. I have these marvelous wings…

"Near Azkaban?" Rahkesh asked, eyeing the rough maps Moody had.

"Not anymore. His base used to be there. He took the plague as an opportunity to relocate."

"Not anywhere near Hogwarts."

"No."

Rahkesh thought this over. Voldemort, for all his supposed brilliance, was very predictable. He had never had a home but Hogwarts. He used the family mansion for a little while, but didn't bother taking care of it. His old cavern was gone. He had used Hogwarts artifacts as horcruxes. He used his ancestral graveyard to hold ceremonies. Voldemort would not go back to his orphanage, and he knew that many people knew about Riddle Manor. So that and its graveyard were out. That left Hogwarts and maybe some other place. Azkaban had been a theme because of the dementors, but that was also out. Voldemort went in for grand things and icons. Hogwarts was out of the question, and likewise the Ministry. Where else…

"I know where he is." Rahkesh said.

The small medallion Moody was wearing lit up. He picked it up and brushed a thumb across the ivory surface. "Alastor Moody."

"Mad Eye dear chap," someone said, "we're all assembled. You do have all of your people out?"

"Yes. But Voldemort's gone and warded his base with parselmagic. I've called Rahkesh Asmodaeus to take them down." Moody said, glancing over at Rahkesh. "Rahkesh has invited the third basilisk." Which was code for "Harry Potter" right now, according to the media. Rahkesh had said nothing as to his "colleague's" status. But it had been assumed easily, and slightly implied in the book he'd published.

"Ah. More humans. Rahkesh's help is, of course, always appreciated, but is the other one necessary?"

"The third shares this territory with Voldemort. I think it's a parseltongue courtesy thing." Moody said dryly.

"Very well. Where is the fortress?"

Moody turned to Rahkesh and covered the medallion with one hand. "Explain." Moody grunted.

"This is Voldemort. He is hugely predictable. What better place for grand schemes and world domination than yet another icon? The only one in the United Kingdom he can get to but hasn't used yet: Stonehenge."

Moody stared hard at Rahkesh for a moment, then slowly nodded and took his hand off the medallion. Rahkesh knew that Moody had not actually had any agents left in Voldemort's ranks, but had never let on so that he would be kept in the loop. No one from Akren was likely to ask who Moody had working for him as long as he was getting results.

"It's at Stonehenge." Moody said. There was a long string of fae cursing from the medallion.

"Wonderful! Bloody brilliant! Right in front of the muggles!"

"Whining won't change a thing Chad." Moody said. "We'll meet at the veela teleportation point nearest there?"

"Fine."

Moody dropped the medallion with a sigh. "Well?"

"Who is Chad?"

"Chadrion. Akren graduate obviously, 1965. He's a dryad. Forest based fae species, like so many are, melds with plants. Chadrion's a pine-based dryad." Moody said. "Any species of pine so he's not the most versatile dryad ever, but also not too restricted.

"Uh huh." Rahkesh said, none of that meaning anything to him. There were no dryads currently at Akren.

"He was the Captain of the Guard for the largest dryad owned forest in Europe. When the magical humans started outlawing fae he got promoted to managing all of the offensive work the Fae Council and the Tribal Elders had in mind. When the dryads got sick of dealing with the magical humans here they went and joined their cousins the dryakan in North America. While most of them were gone their mages took the opportunity to implement some amazing new wards on the forests – they needed them to be empty you see, so they couldn't do it earlier. Chad stayed in the only remnant unwarded forest to defend those who couldn't leave, to protect the mages making the new wards, and to ensure that the magical humans stayed out of their forests. He's been pretty effective."

"Hope he likes dementors." Rahkesh said.

"Alastor." The communicator medallion chirped.

"Yes?"

"Lord Hadrian is coming with a few of his guards, to observe, not to interfere. Except he wants rights to any captured vampires. The Master of Paris might show up at some point along with the Master of Berlin and the Master of Vienna, but the last one is unlikely and they've promised to stay out of this. They just want to know Voldemort and his followers are truly dead."

"Got it." Moody said. "Not surprising, Voldemort just about blew France apart the last time around." He turned the communicator off, grabbing Rahkesh's shoulder he apparated both of them to the meeting point.

A carved stone picnic table with worn stone benches was the only marker of the veela apparition point. That and a circle of very old maples. The picnic table was covered with inlaid colored marble chips in swirling designs, muggle repelling magic in a veela runic form.

"Tell them I'm going ahead." Rahkesh said, getting nervous. Moody gave his shoulder a squeeze.

"You can end him easy."

"I'm not worried about that."

"I know. Go ahead, I'll keep them outside until the last possible moment. Signal if you run into real trouble. I'll recognize either of your magical signals." Moody said, telling Rahkesh that he could contact him telepathically in either identity if he needed to.

"The other is getting harder and harder to do. I'm glad this will be the last time. I'm losing the old signature." Rahkesh said.

"You know Stonehenge?"

"No. Mind giving me a site?" Rahkesh asked. Moody nodded, slowly he lowered his mental shields. Rahkesh dropped in with a touch of mind magic. He wasn't very good at this, but he caught the image Moody was projecting, and apparated.

Rahkesh felt the wards hesitantly. They hissed. Rahkesh didn't touch them enough to trigger them, just to ascertain that they were parselmagic. He also checked the ground for spellwork. Two paces to the north magics were laid into the ground. Moody's location had been very precise.

He could see the tops of Stonehenge, just over the horizon. Rahkesh had never been here before. It was still more than an hour until dawn and he could see no one else about. It was also about to start raining. Rahkesh took a deep breath, and smelled the storm approaching. Dimly he heard wings beat and feathers rustle. This was no ordinary storm coming. This was a storm to shake the earth apart. A giant thunderstorm filled with energy and flaring air currents. Rahkesh breathed in again and smiled as he filled with a rush of magic. This time he found the thunderbird's apparently endless destructive nature, and let it hover just outside his senses, ready for the fight. Perfect. He could not have asked for better conditions. And there would be no muggles for a long way around. Not right now. The fae had cleared them out that night. And no sane person would be about in weather like what Rahkesh could feel racing towards him.

Know he had a few minutes Rahkesh slowly began to feed the storm. Energy in the form of electricity and waves of hot and cold slowly pouring out of his magic. The clouds above got even darker and started to visibly grow. The breeze carried everything up and away and Rahkesh sent it all swirling skywards by imagining the massive wings of the thunderbird, formed of raw magic, hurling energy and heat into the storm.

Rahkesh opened his eyes. Horizon to horizon the sky was black. There should have been some light just starting to show. But it was black as full night. He could not see where the earth ended and the clouds began. Perfect. The storm's energy needed to be released, and Rahkesh shivered in anticipation of channeling all of that into his animagus. He held back only by reminding himself that Voldemort needed to go first, then he could celebrate.

Rahkesh hadn't had much time to learn parselmagic. Many decades less than Voldemort had. All the same his abilities seemed to be more intact; Voldemort probably hadn't known much about the parselmagic's real purpose until he'd read Rahkesh's book. He'd taught himself all of this. This, truly, was an incredible feat of learning and magic. Then again Voldemort was supposed to be brilliant.

Gingerly Rahkesh examined the wards in front of him. He slipped into the snakemagic and felt his vision change just a little, then his magical senses. He could feel the wards, and almost see them. In a way it was like seeing – the field looked like it was covered in writhing, twisting magic, but he couldn't actually see it. As the magic and human senses merged Rahkesh blinked and finally could truly see it.

Voldemort may have done an excellent job, but it was clear at once that his abilities were in far worse condition than Rahkesh's. This was probably a matter of luck as much as anything else, considering their respective childhoods. Rahkesh was sure that if Voldemort had ever found a learning environment like Akren his full abilities might have exceeded Rahkesh's. As it was all he'd had was Hogwarts and an abusive awful orphanage.

Rahkesh found the holes in the wards and slipped through. Following the hissing and rustling of the parselmagic he sank inwards. Voldemort's base was far below ground. With an exit that connected magically to a forest…somewhere rather nearer to Hogwarts. Rahkesh sent the news of the second exit to Moody with a quick thought. Moody would send some of the fae (they were mostly nature-based after all) to take care of that.

Inside Rahkesh smelled out the basilisk magic, keeping himself far away from it to avoid alerting Voldemort to his presence. Following the magical lines Rahkesh found a point where many crossed. Here he settled into his basilisk self, and gently wrapped the magic in his own parselmagic. Then he gently lifted the ward pieces and placed them away, in a corner.

A gaping opening formed around him as the wards peeled away. Rahkesh was sweating heavily as he moved the wards slowly and gently. No jarring or bumping, no quick moves. Slow constant pressure. His fingernails were biting into palms almost enough to draw blood.

Finally Rahkesh had all of the edges of the wards. Voldemort should have done a full bubble all around his underground fortress, but maybe he hadn't noted the openings. Now Rahkesh pulled at the wards as if they were made of elastic, pulling them away from the opening and wrapping them backwards around themselves. To avoid Voldemort noting the increased magic drain he located the horcrux he carried. It was easier to find when his mind was in the parselmagic. Rahkesh had never noticed that before. The bleeding blackened wreck came into his vision, giving off a gold glow, and a dark reeking stench. It hadn't smelled before. This was probably an effect of his mind being "snake-like" at the moment.

Rahkesh sent magic through the horcrux, it emerged still in his mind, but feeling as if it were Voldemort's. He sent it into the wards. Now the wards contained both his magic and Voldemort's, except Rahkesh's was disguised.

The wards finally flipped inside out. Rahkesh pulled them away and began to draw his magic out, shrinking them. Then he pulled Voldemort's connections inward until the wards were a small bundle on the ground a few meters from him. Leave some of his magic inside Rahkesh went back to the original outline of the wards. Where the wards had been he could sense the basic outline as if it were still pressed into the air and ground. Tying the wards to their starting point Rahkesh made sure he could put them back as they had been in seconds. It would be like releasing a spring; they would snap out again and flip to fill the places they had been set at.

With the wards gone a set of door appeared, great black iron things covered with carved black iron snakes. How predictable.

Sygra? Can you sense the other side? Rahkesh asked, aware that his familiar's natural heat-sensing and smelling abilities might be better than magic here.

Yes. It is empty.

Rahkesh checked the door over for spells quickly, finding many locking enchantments that could be activated if Voldemort wished. But none we active right then. Rahkesh gauged the strength of the spells, and decided that he could break them if he had to, if they were activated. Especially since the last horcrux should be gone and Voldemort might be incapacitated by the loss of Rahkesh's soul piece, forcing his soul to fill in the gap.

Pushing the door open Rahkesh pulled on the magic of the Yeck cap he had claimed before even arriving at Akren. Instantly he felt himself go invisible. Vey useful thing that.

Long shadows stretched across a massive stone hall. A huge stone throne stood at one end, the floors open. Smaller chars were near the throne and more along the walls. There was a full body's worth of blood on the floor in the middle of the hall.

Such an artistic interior decorator .Sygra mused softly.

Rahkesh opened up all of his bloodmagic enhanced senses. Smell, sight, hearing and magic, he deliberately kept the runes from glowing as the magic appeared. Normally they would have flashed gold briefly, then faded. He couldn't risk that now.

The hall was empty, and so dark that it took Rahkesh several seconds to find the doors at the end. One door behind the throne, one back to both sides, and a pair of larger doors on the wall to his left. Rahkesh selected the door behind the throne and, after checking the spells to assure that they were no worse than those on the main entry door, opened it.

Again darkness, then torches lit along either wall, leading away into darkness. Rahkesh checked the spells on the torches, and was relieved to find that while they were designed to light up when someone entered, they did not send any signal to anything or anyone. Poor planning that.

The hallway ended in three doors in a semicircle. Rahkesh, sick of wandering around, and knowing the fae were coming, smelled out Voldemort with his parselmagic. The other basilisk had most recently entered the middle one. Rahkesh examined it, then followed. Inwardly he began to isolate the horcrux within himself. He had only had a few hours to prepare, but it was well closed off. Now he shut it off completely and began preparing to funnel power into an internal killing curse.

Inside the door was a plain rectangle room. One door was at the end, one off the left wall. Rahkesh paused, confused. There was…more than one parselmouth?

Rahkesh froze as his senses verified that yes, indeed, there were multiple parselmouths behind the left door.

How was this possible? Voldemort was the only other he knew about, apart from that one little boy. How could Voldemort have found more…from the smell many more…without anyone knowing?

They were young, Rahkesh realized suddenly. None of these had snake forms, and they smelled young.

With a sick feeling sinking into his stomach Rahkesh opened the left side door.

Inside were cages, six of them. Inside each was a child, curled under a small blanket. Rahkesh paused, but felt no traps or wards. Children, parselmouths all.

A head appeared from under the nearest blanket. A little girl, maybe eight, blond hair that was filthy. She was looking around, frightened and confused. Rahkesh dropped his invisibility. She gasped in surprised and fear. Rahkesh knelt and raised a finger to his lips, indicating silence, and winked. The little girl just stared, drawing away.

Now what? Voldemort had collection of parselmouths children, obviously not his. Rahkesh expected a violent battle, and he expected he and/or Voldemort might actually transform, either into basilisk or Rahkesh into a thunderbird. How could he keep these ones safe?

The children were all awake now, all watching him, looking very frightened. Rahkesh smiled gently at them and winked again, indicating silence once more. What was he supposed to do about this? All of them looked very weak and underfed, cold and probably (their smells told him) a little sick from the damp cages. Probably kidnapped, or their parents dead from the plague.

Rahkesh reached out to Moody, finding the ex-auror's mind he sent an image of what he was seeing. And got a snarl of pure fury in response. He didn't know Moody's animagus, but it was just about roaring at the sight of the abducted caged children. Rahkesh dimly realized his own magic was going crazy, the parselmagic instinctively ready to fight and kill to protect other parselmouths. But if he was feel an overwhelming urge to kill the one who had harmed these parselmouths, how had Voldemort been able to actually do such a thing?

He needed to do something, anything. Voldemort would sense him any minute. The wards were wide open and the fae alumni army couldn't be far off. Rahkesh needed to do something, but he had no way to get them all out.

Finally Rahkesh drew his knife, making a shallow cut on his palm he walked into the room, and drew a thin line of blood around the cages, which were placed in a close circle on the floor. The cages, he noted, were just far enough apart that the children could not reach each other. The bloodline completed he left it at that. This was his own knife, the one he had made, and Rahkesh had poured its power into the blood drawn by its blade.

"Who are you?"

It was a little boy, maybe seven. Rahkesh crouched beside him.

"My name's Rahkesh. I'm here to get you out of this place."

"How?" The boy asked, seeming strangely calm.

"Magic." Rahkesh said with a faint smile. "It's okay, you'll be out of here very soon. But I need to make sure the bad man who brought you here is gone so he can't hurt you. I need you to stay very quiet while I go make sure he's gone, can you do that?" He received six uncertain nods.

Rahkesh slipped back out the door, leaving it open a crack. Smelled the air and reaching out magically he sensed Voldemort, somewhere a ways behind the remaining door.

From his belt holster Rahkesh removed one of his surprises. A muggle handgun. Very ordinary, very small, and very much outside what Voldemort would expect. Holding the gun away from himself Rahkesh drew his wand and cast three layers of shields around himself. Then he opened the two vials on his belt, scratching a finger on the sharp edge of a small pin he wore on his shoulder, in the likeness of a thunderbird, he dripped the blood into each vial.

Smoke rose, wrapping him, then turning green and blue. Rahkesh flicked a wandless activation spell and the two vials poured out their shield enchantments. Potions enchantments were not something Rahkesh knew anything about, so he'd had to buy both. Wandless shielding was another matter, and Rahkesh began to weave power reinforcements into the magic around him to redirect spells around himself, which was less stressful than simply stopping them.

Inside the door was a comfortable office with wood paneling on the walls over the rough stone, bookcases, chairs, a massive desk, a mirror, and a fancy arrangement of torches and candles. It was empty.

Then the tangy venomous reek of basilisk magic hit Rahkesh's nose. The door to the next room was open.

"CRUCIO!"

Rahkesh, already on edge, ducked instantly. Too late he sensed the ward on the ceiling just outside the office that he'd missed. Rolling away from a barrage of blue and yellow spells he rolled to his feet.

Voldemort stood in the open doorway. Rahkesh registered his furious shock before a wave of black magics was hurled at him.

Lightning exploded, Rahkesh caught the soul-rotting spell in a fist of parselmagic and hurled it back.

Ducking a killing curse Rahkesh spun and used a fireball to eat the next spell sent after him. Two bone shattering spells blasted apart the wall near his head. Rahkesh summoned Voldemort's heart. Voldemort shrugged the spell off.

Spiraling whips of black sparkling magic shrieked towards Rahkesh. Voldemort's horcrux woke up with Voldemort's proximity. Rahkesh sent the black magic spinning aside with a deflection spell, lifted the gun, and fired twice.

The gun melted as a red spell hit it. Voldemort staggered away with a shriek, clutching his right arm.

Searing pain lashed through Rahkesh's head, making him stumble. He had forgotten the pain of that old scar. Grimly he let himself fall to the floor, avoiding a killing curse, sent lefthanded.

As a second killing curse flew just past his head Rahkesh fell inward.

AVADA KEDAVRA

The inward spell lanced through his mind and slammed into the horcrux. Rahkesh's mind was filled with green light.

Someone was screaming. Rahkesh lurched to his feet, ready to fight.

Voldemort was on his knees, screaming.

Blackness tugged at Rahkesh's vision and he felt the collapse coming as the horcrux died out of him, leave a gaping hole in his soul.

Voldemort's screaming rose and Rahkesh staggered against the desk. A soul-deep pull formed, feeling like his heart was being pulled from his chest Rahkesh choked, trying to concentrate as his soul fragment broke free of Voldemort and soared back to him. The vacuum in him dragging it away.

Lightning crashed through the room, blasting everything to ash. Hissing magic rose, swirling around the two parseltongues. Rahkesh, deep in his own mind, imagining his own soul found a hissing venom and wild raging bird filled with lightning.

The thunderbird woke fully. Blinding light washed through the room, then out into the hallway, and into the main hall, and out.

Magic crashed through the fortress, the very edge of Rahkesh's senses going with it. He felt the fae, locked in a basement cell block. Rahkesh memorized their presence, and forced his animagus to acknowledge that they would not be harmed. In his mind he drew walls of lightning, flashing and crashing but strong as basilisk scales, encircling the fae prisoners, three of which were children…which explained why the adults, despite being Akren trained, had been captured.

Then the magic tore outwards again, too much to contain and too wild, in the nature of Rahkesh's soul, to follow even his orders.

Outside the advancing fae and vampires stopped dead as the sky opened up and millions of lightning bolts lanced into the earth. The ground boiled and rolled, turf exploding into showers of ash and sparks. Black clouds dropped lower and began to spin. Lightning lit up the dark field, enclosing everything in a wild array of shrieking crackling magic enhanced electricity. Strong shields were the only things that saved any of the fae as rippling spinning waves of lightning flew through the air and earth. Above writhing lines of lightning wrapped around each other and danced across the sky.

Rahkesh saw the soul fragment flying towards him, bright and sending crackling waves of energy away in all directions, sharp edged and ragged. Inside thunderstorms spun away and whirled like galaxies.

Rahkesh pulled himself together and felt for death. Knowing it as he did he drew upon the memories, his breathing slowed, his heartbeat began to stutter painfully. He could not kill his own soul so easily as he had Voldemort's.

Instead he found the wound left by Voldemort's horcrux, and found the pulling vortex and had dragged it into death, and followed.

Rahkesh collapsed, unaware that his body had gone perfectly still as his mind crossed over, dragging the wild soul fragment with it.

Darkness enveloped him, then light so bright he couldn't see. Rahkesh tried to shut his eyes, but they were already closed. Then he saw the soul fragment, still coming at him, but slower now as it was pulled back by the gap in Voldemort. But it was still his soul. Rahkesh latched on magically with every bit of willpower he could find, and pulled.

As the soul fragment hesitated Rahkesh drew his knife again, and stabbed it into Voldemort's heart.

Voldemort's body arched, screaming silently. The knife instantly fatally wrecking his soul. Rahkesh yanked on his soul fragment, now forcing its motion both through Voldemort's body and with his won mind.

The soul fragment darted across, into death. Rahkesh, hanging on tightly, swung. His mind went back and the soul went spinning away and vanished in a shower of darkness.

Rahkesh woke screaming. He had never felt such pain as his soul died. The agony woke the survival instincts of his animagus.

Transform. Sygra said firmly, dropping away.

The children!

Are safe from you. TRANSFORM! Sygra hissed urgently.

Rahkesh let it go. His body felt like it was vaporizing as magic spilled out of him. Dropping his solid human form massive wings unfurled. Voldemort's fortress shattered and melted around them as lightning ripped through the rock and magic.

The thunderbird exploded out of the earth, expanding rapidly, shrouded in black clouds and furious snapping lights. Rahkesh let the animal's instincts take over as he felt for his own soul.

The wound would need to be shut into a tight controlled tunnel before his entire soul drained across into death. Rahkesh wrapped lightning around and around the connection, tightening the bolts into a long tunnel between life and death with his magic flowing freely both ways, but no longer sliding off.

Death eaters ran out of the wreckage of the fortress. The storm cut them down as soon as they were above ground. The watching fae and vampires had nothing left to kill as lightning bolts zapped each fleeing man and woman through the head, exploding their brains or sending them into lethal convulsions. The endless destructive fury of the thunderbird reveled in the slaughter, screaming its delight and power.

Rahkesh finished, his soul contained. Drawing back into his own mind a feeling of horrible weakness followed. This was his remaining soul struggling to expand and fill in to cover him completely. Rahkesh, strangely exhausted, drew in the frenzied killing power of the storm and channeled it into his soul.

The watchers saw the storm changing, turning into a swirling vortex of black clouds and dazzling lightning, the thunderbird at its center. The lightning built and built, spinning wildly around the thunderbird. Then, all at once, the lightning broke free and shot inwards. The thunderbird's entire body lit up, a massive black shadow behind the clouds, wreathed in lightning. Lightning filled every feather and fell inwards. Rahkesh, soaring on a wave of adrenaline, felt his pain and exhaustion shift to almost unbearable frenzied energy and strength.

In the ruins of his fortress Voldemort stumbled upright, blood gushing from his ruined chest, but amazingly alive. His skin, brittle and damaged by the magic expended keeping the remnant of his soul intact, was falling apart in bloody lesions.

Rahkesh twisted and soared down. Fae and vampires dove for cover as the massive ethereal lightning filled form tore through the clouds, raging storms of lightning flying before it.

Rahkesh found the circle of blood he'd drawn around the caged children. It glowed, and within everything was fine, and undamaged island in a sea of destruction. And he saw Voldemort, pulling himself to his feet.

Rahkesh hit the ground, lightning flashed and roared, the thunderbird screamed and Rahkesh forced himself back into his human form. He drew the knife again, and pressed it into his skin.

All of his bloodmagic woke, and Rahkesh drew it all to the surface. Runes flared across his skin in an array of dim golden light. Rahkesh dragged the knife tip through his skin, connecting the healing runes with the strength with the speed with his most recent two, the magic directing and focusing runes.

Now came his trick, Rahkesh drew a small marble and dropped it to the ground. Red light boomed in a powerful blast, obscuring everything. Inside a two dimensional illusion-figure appeared.

Rahkesh conjured, a massive ghostly serpent. A basilisk, easily the size of his own and only barely see-through. He wrapped it around the illusion-Harry and stepped away.

When Voldemort turned he found himself faced with Rahkesh, and with Harry Potter. Harry Potter was wrapped in a ghostly hissing basilisk, and Rahkesh was channeling the full powers of the thunderbird. Lightning rippled and flashed above and around him like a pair of giant wings and the sky above shot down lightning into the ground around him.

A thunderous roared made Rahkesh turn, and grin. Sygra in full wyvern form was in the air. The large wyvern basilisk twisted, wings beating, and turned earthward. Voldemort gaped as she landed, wings still raised, her twisting snake body interrupting anyone watching them.

The last of the death eaters attacked. Rahkesh dodged their spells and turned to fight. Sygra got there first. Her powerful head knocked two aside, her spines impaling them. Her jaws closed around a third, crushing him and biting him in half. The forth she sprayed her poisonous acidic venom across. Screaming the man dissolved, curled up, and died. Sygra twisted, wing claws ripping the guts out of another fleeing man, and crushed two more people with her tail. The rest were almost out of range. Sygra's wings nearly hit the ground as she dove, spraying venom all over them. Her tailed writhed in between the battle and the watchers, blocking their view. That done she swung back around behind Rahkesh.

Rahkesh drew his wand.

"Avada Kedavra!"

Voldemort twisted, fast on his feet despite his wounds, but Rahkesh's bloodmagic was flying through him surging across every nerve and through his mind. The curse hit full on, as did the second and third ones. Voldemort froze as they hit one after the other. He struggled against them, mouth open, eyes bulging. Rahkesh drew upon his newest bloodmagic and brought up all his hate and anger, all the raw fury of a parselmouth seeking vengeance on a being that had harmed parselmouths, and put it into a final killing curse.

The magic gave off no light as it ripped free of Rahkesh's body. His wand exploded with the force of the magic, the explosion tearing his hand apart. Perfectly aimed and with all its power contained inside, none falling off in light or heat, the curse struck Voldemort full in the face.

His ruined hand pouring blood from where his exploding wand had ripped the flesh to the bone Rahkesh focused, and created short beam of green light from his illusion-person to Voldemort.

Voldemort toppled to the ground, dead.

Sygra rolled, snapping her wings around, and the ghostly basilisk shuddered, but the illusion held.

Rahkesh, feeling like his hand had been cut off, turned slightly to find the fae and vampires.

Your arm! Sygra hissed in alarm.

Not now. Fly up a bit?

But-

Sygra please. Later.

Sygra lifted, beating huge wings. Rahkesh moved aside a little, so that as the wyvern moved the watchers saw the person who had cast the killing curses, and Rahkesh. Separate. Sygra's perfect timing of her movements meant that everyone had seen that last burst of green magic from the illusion, and now they could see Rahkesh standing apart from it, in the opposite direction from where the first two killing curses had originated.

Feeling the blood draining from him, and realizing dimly that he was bleeding to death, Rahkesh turned, and gave the illusion a short bow. At his mental command, it bowed back. Rahkesh used a special spell he had designed to cancel the illusion. A bright burst of blue light, and the figure and the basilisk around him vanished.

Rahkesh turned back to the watchers. The fae were almost beside him already. The vampires were a little to the side and a behind, closer but just watching everything. Moody, despite his limp, arrived first.

"Nicely done…where'd he go?"

"As per our agreement, he doesn't have to deal with the aftermath." Rahkesh whispered, feeling faint. The fae nearest nodded, glancing at the now empty patch of ground. Others rushed past Rahkesh, into the remains of the fortress. "In the second basement level, they're fine." Rahkesh called, his voice shaking.

One of the fae alumni moved forward quickly, taking Rahkesh's torn arm. "What happened?

"My wand shattered." Rahkesh said, swaying on his feet. He sensed the Akren signal, "all of ours are fine." He added. All of these fae were from Akren. "There're a bunch of children in there. In cages. Parselmouth children."

"We'll get them out." Moody said at once as Rahkesh's legs began to give out. The fae beside him helped lower Rahkesh to the ground and began casting healing spells.

The thunderbird roared, the earth shook under the force of the rumble of thunder. It didn't yet trust fae. Rahkesh forced it back. Lightning skittered across his skin. Rahkesh leaned away from the fae, who jumped out of the way as lightning rippled through him. Rahkesh drew his bloodied knife again, and activated his healing bloodmagics. Golden runes blazed across his skin, flaring brightly. Lightning bolts ripped through the air, striking Rahkesh and sliding into the runes, wrapping him in a golden glow.

Under the lightning Rahkesh's body jerked helplessly, the electrocution impossible to control. It felt amazing, better than anything he'd ever felt. It hurt more than any pain he'd ever experienced. Rahkesh found his injured arm and hand, noting what the damage was he began to repair it. Lightning bolts lashed into his body and twisted through the bloodmagic and into his injuries, energizing and closing them. Rahkesh drew on his knowledge of healing spells to close the wounds as his bloodmagic focused the effort.

The final sparks faded from his hand and Rahkesh rolled over. His hand was healed, remaining was an amazing array of lightning-like scars that crisscrossed the skin, splintered and reformed, like real lightning.

He was alive, Voldemort was dead. Part of his soul was dead, but he survived. Rahkesh grinned broadly and raised his uninjured hand. Moody eyed him for as long moment, then pulled his to his feet.

"Some display."

"I think…I might faint." Rahkesh said, swaying a little.

The freed fae were coming towards them. Other fae were coming out too, carrying the six children.

The vampires finally approached, Rahkesh noted that apart from Hadrian there were three other City Masters were present. These must be from Paris, Vienna, and Berlin.

"Where did the other basilisk go?" the Master of Berlin asked curiously.

"I didn't ask." Rahkesh sighed, "actually we've never spoken at all." His vision was spotty, and fading in and out. He could hear his heartbeat too loudly.

The fae had their injured out now, and healers examining them.

"Everyone alive?" Rahkesh asked. He certainly didn't feel alive. He felt weak, terribly weak, probably from blood loss.

"Very much so, thank you Rahkesh." One of them said gratefully. "How did you keep that explosion from hitting them?"

"They were trained at Akren." Rahkesh replied with a painful shrug. "I'm not sure I could have hurt them accidentally." That was probably not true, but it would work in his favor.

"And, as always, we defend each other." One of the other fae agreed. He winked, "please let the other basilisk know how grateful we are." Rahkesh nodded tiredly. This one had probably guessed what an act he'd put on.

Sudden flashes of light startled everyone. Rahkesh spun, froze, and cursed in parseltongue as he saw several reporters lined up several meters away. His feet were unbalanced, and his knees didn't want to support him. His arm hurt. And a nausea-like headache had began.

"How the hell did they know what was happening?" Rahkesh hissed, unaware that his eyes were half closed and he was starting to tremble.

"Rahkesh that whole fight took half an hour." Moody said. "Be a little hard to miss the magic flying everywhere."

"Are you Rahkesh Asmodaeus?" One of the reporters shouted, running towards him. Behind him came a camera man and another reporter. Rahkesh resisted the urge to kill them all.

"Yes."

"Oh wow! We've been waiting for the chance to speak to you-"

"And haven't gotten it since I do not wish to speak to you." Rahkesh snapped. Lightning crashed overhead. Sensing Rahkesh was not totally in control, and about to collapse and therefore feeling like he might be in danger, Moody stepped in front of him.

Rahkesh turned away to find the parselmouth children. He'd have to find out if any of their parents were alive, though he was almost certain none were. Then he'd have to get them to Mr. Ramdas in India. Rahkesh moved too fast and his vision started to go black. A cold wind swept through him.

"Dementors!" The fae who was probably the one in charge called. The three reporters tried to flee, the fae stunned them. Forming a tight circle around the injured they began a spell.

Rahkesh let the fae deal with the dementors. He had no energy left to fight and his soul ached. Instead he found the shivering frightened children, a little ways off. A dozen vampires were nearby, apparently keeping an eye on them. Rahkesh didn't like that. Some of these children had fully intact abilities. They'd make extremely valuable followers for any City Master. Ignoring his mounting head ache Rahkesh made his way over to them, giving the vampires a suspicious look.

"If no one can find their guardians…" One of the vampires began.

"Try it and die." Rahkesh hissed, shouldering past him. Behind him Hadrian turned a laugh into a cough. Further back a shadow, almost invisible against the black sky and earth, chuckled darkly.

"I've already read their minds." The vampire stated, "most of their parents are dead, but I don't know about that one." He added, nodding to the little blond girl. Rahkesh turned on him, hissing, lightning crashing.

"You read their minds!" He roared, parselmouth instincts going into a protective overdrive.

"Why not?" The vampire persisted. Rahkesh closed his eyes wearily, forcing himself not to attack.

"Did it occur to your dead rotting brain that maybe, just maybe, reading the mind of one parselmouth might make the others JUST A LITTLE ANGRY?" Rahkesh said, ending in a shout. Lightning wrapped around his hands and thunder crashed overhead, Rahkesh moved, lightning flashing, forcing the vampires to dodge aside as he placed himself between them and the children.

"Rahkesh!" Moody called, seeing a fight starting.

Rahkesh snarled. Moody blinked, then, slowly, grinned at the wary vampires, and backed away. "If one of you animated corpses gets one step closer to them it'll be the last thing you do." He warned, hissing. Sygra, still in wyvern form, settled onto the ground beside him, forcing the vampires near here out of her way.

"If they don't have families or guardians-" The vampire began again.

Rahkesh hurled a lightning bolt at him. Lightning exploded out around and shrieked down from the sky in twisting spirals. Blinded by the light everyone fell dodged aside.

Wreathed in lightning Rahkesh couldn't stop the transformation. His parselmagic had risen, furious. His ribs snapped and reformed, his limbs vanished. As the dazzling lightning displays rolled back the vampires were faced with a hissing basilisk, lightning dancing across his shining scales.

"Parselmouths are rather…protective…of other parselmouths." Moody said gently into the stunned silence as Rahkesh raised his head, displaying all his venom dripping fangs, and leaned out menacingly towards the small group of vampires. Off to the side the Master of Paris, a tall, thin, blond haired vampire with icy green eyes, chuckled softly. His chosen heir was a parselmouth, he probably knew all about their fierce protectiveness of each others. But he made no move to help his fellow Lord.

Of the dozen vampires eleven backed away, far away, and moved aside. The remaining one had been the one talking all along, and was clearly their leader. Probably the Master of Vienna, Rahkesh decided.

"Damn it! It's not like they have much of future now." The City Master snarled, angry now. He moved forwards gesturing to the children. "They have no families, no homes. We take orphans all the time. You have no right to-"

Rahkesh struck, fangs flashing, lightning ripped from the basilisk's body and shot into the vampire, who dodged his fangs smoothly. Rahkesh's scales twisted, razor sharp edges outwards. He spun and slammed a long coil into the vampire. Lightning ripped away the vampire's shield and his spells shimmered harmlessly along Rahkesh's scales and fell aside. Rahkesh hissed and released a spray of venom. The vampire ducked and blasted it away.

From above Rahkesh's fury fueled the raging temper of the thunderbird. Lightning shot down, coating every scale on the snake. The clouds shimmered and began to drop, lightning twisting down. The wind picked up and in seconds a howling gale had formed. The dementors and fae fled as a crackling tornado of lightning plunged out of the black sky and blasted the earth apart.

Rahkesh struck, snake-speed darting back and forth, dodging curses powerful enough to damage even a basilisk. Threadmagic shattered one of his fangs as he clipped the City Master in passing. The tornado hit the earth beside his head. Rahkesh grabbed the entire thing and pulled.

The tornado turned into a wave of rolling writhing lightning bolts, washing over Rahkesh, gathering energy from his scales, vaporizing the venom he forced through his skin. Within the wall of lightning the air became poisonous and acidic.

Rahkesh flung himself forward, turning sideways, lightning disrupting all magic. The City Master couldn't dodge the basilisk's entire body, blinded and unable to apparate he cast a shield spell and tried to duck. The lightning leaped off of Rahkesh and crashed into him.

His newest bloodmagics were fully operational, even in snake form. Rahkesh directed the lightning, tearing apart layer after layer of shields, spells, enchantments, threadmagic, wards, and bloodmetal. Focusing in on the vampire's body he poured venom into the lightning and shoved it into the vampire.

Screaming and writhing the vampire fought, trying to free himself. Basilisk venom sunk into his skin and burned inwards, lightning tore at his flesh and shot through his brain.

Bloodmagic exploded, Rahkesh spun aside as the vampiric magics tore into his neck. The City Master collected the lightning and venom, and ripped it out of himself. Flinging it away he unleashed a massive fireball.

As a basilisk Rahkesh was too large to dodge it all, he transformed. In less than a second he was human again, dropping to his knees and feeling the hair on the top of his head turn to ash as the fire streaked overhead. Pulling back his magics Rahkesh rose to his feet and planted himself between the children and the vampire, and waited.

The air cleared, the gale died down, the lightning shimmered away into the clouds and the thunder became less constant. The gasping, bleeding Master of Vienna paused, facing Rahkesh across a few meters of ground.

Rahkesh was ready to collapse. The magic induced anger at danger to parselmouths had fed his energy, but even that wasn't enough to keep him going any longer. He had lost too much to death in the fight to destroy his and Voldemort's souls. He'd lost far too much blood and his energy was drained from sending his mind into death and then forcing it back.

He ignored all of this, determined to put on a good front. Instead he straightened, calmed his breathing, grateful for the darkness of the storm, which hid how pale and shaky he was. He let his bloodmagics become just barely visible, a faint golden glow. He wrapped his magics tightly around him, and waited.

The Master of Vienna was a bloody wreck. His skin had been flayed off and burned to ash by the lightning. The basilisk venom was destroying his body from the inside out. He was blind from the lightning attacking his brain, his magical channels badly damaged. Bones showed through on his left arm where the flesh had been entirely removed. Despite this he was visibly healing, and his bloodmagic glowed strong. Rahkesh, sensing the vampire's magics, realized with a tired resignation that the vampire was in much better condition than he was. His body and magics would soon overcome the basilisk venom. The internal damage might remain for some time, but most of it would be healed soon. He didn't need his vision to fight. And his far greater age meant better developed magical channels, even with all the damage he could compensate with bloodmagic and threadmagic. Despite any physical injures, his magics were far more intact that Rahkesh's were.

Rahkesh realized slowly that if the fight continued, he would probably not win. He concealed this knowledge, letting lightning spark across his skin and hiss of the basilisk close around him. If necessary he could turn into a thunderbird again. In that form he might outlast the vampire, especially with this storm overhead. And in that form he could probably access the basilisk enough to turn all his magic fully poisonous. Even if he eventually lost, there wouldn't be much left of the vampire, if he survived. And, if absolutely necessary, Rahkesh could use his newest connection to death and drag what remained alive of the vampire across. Rahkesh might survive that, probably not, but he could at the very least take the vampire with him.

Rahkesh walked forwards until he and the vampire were face to face.

"If you ever, and I do mean ever, make an attempt at turning a healthy parselmouth child into a vampire again, I will kill you and destroy your soul. And there is no power on this earth that will stop me." Rahkesh said in a soft voice between a growl and hiss.

Turning his back on the staring vampire Rahkesh walked away. Using anger to keep himself steady he went to the children, collecting them all in a levitating spell Rahkesh touched the portkey he always carried, and activated it.

The portkey took him through four places in London, Rahkesh stripping off any tracking charms as he went, before landing at a cottage long owned by the Potters.

On the suddenly empty battlefield and sky began to clear of the black clouds and sunlight starting coming through. The vampires started leaving at once. Lord Hadrian paused, turning to watch a shadow that rippled in and out of existence in between sun and shadow.

"Do you think he'll live?"

"He'll live." Tristan Namach answered softly. "And he'll manage the final transformation." The oldest vampire sounded resigned. Hadrian winced sympathetically.

"Surely with the demons attacking he will be overlooked?"

"Highly unlikely." Tristan replied dryly. "Not after the last one. However, should he last long enough, we may actually gain something this time around."

"Do you really think it will be enough?"

"Possibly. Probably. They've been waiting a long time for Earth."

"But even if he is enough, they won't want what he'll become. Not after the last one." Hadrian said. Tristan grinned in a wolfish manner, glowing eyes and white fangs showing through the shadows hiding him.

"Too bad for them."

Hadrian looked back over to the bloody vampire, who was staggering as he apparated away. "Should we kill him?"

"No. No need. He won't be making that mistake again." Tristan said.

"Will you invite Rahkesh to be your next apprentice?" Hadrian asked.

"Yes." Tristan said. Hadrian grimaced.

"Better start preparing. You're going to have the fight of the millennia on your hands to keep him when they find out what he is."

"As I am certain you are aware" Tristan drawled, "I have dealt with that threat before. Quite adequately too." The shadowy form rippled out of existence.

The Master of Paris, who had also lingered, stepped in beside Hadrian as they apparated back to the Master of London's mansion to prepare a press release.

"It seems the parselmouths have a new leader." The thin blond vampire mused, drawing a sharp look from Hadrian, followed by a groan as Hadrian realized what that meant and forwarded the thought to his Master. Tristan's muffled growl was audible to both vampires, making the French vampire laugh.

X

18,000+ words. Longest chapter I've ever written. Do not expect another like it. But I did say in the last one that I would make this all one chapter.

Please Review!

So yeah, trying to preserve the species in bunkers. I've giving up trying to write scenes of the chaos and panic that would ensue if anything like that actually happened – I can't write anything crazy enough.