Ariadne
Chapter 25: The Vampire Club
"DUCK!" I yelled as I slashed over August's head towards the neck of the first vrykolakas sister. I hadn't actually ever seen one in person before, and let me be the first to say that vrykolakas are NOTHING like the vampires in Twilight, or even the kind Anne Rice wrote about. They're positively dead looking, with sunken in pale faces, blue tinted leathery skin, bright red hair, and mouths full of impossibly sharp teeth. The eyes are the worst part though; paled over and milky, like a corpse. It was all I could do not to run cowering to Annabeth and let her do the killing for me.
"Kill the spare, return the newblood!" The first sister chanted again in Greek. Apparently, killing me and returning August to some unknown force had become their mindless mantra.
"Left!" I yelled again. August ducked left as I stabbed one of the sisters strait through the stomach. The unfortunate part of this was that I had missed the heart, making the strike moot.
SLAM!
"Foul newblood!" Came the second sister's voice from behind me. As I dodge the sharp, razor like claws of the vrykolakas, looked over to see that August had smashed the second one into the lab table in the center of the room. We had found the two sisters in a large chamber that was half a lab, half a torture chamber. There were stretching racks, an iron maiden in the corner, and a large lab table with a mixture of modern science instruments and ancient alchemy tools sat in the middle. The table, however, had just met an unfortunate demise from the body slam of fury performed by August.
"Gods be damned they're fast!" August grumbled, dodging another set of claws and kicking the vrykolakas in the chest.
"And not very easy to kill." I called back, embedding my knife into the shoulder of my attacker, with little success to slow her down.
"Invaders must die!" She hissed, lunging at me. Little good it did as I sidestepped out of her path, sending her crashing into the iron maiden. August ran behind me and locked her inside, which seemed like a great idea.
"Let's just concentrate on killing this one for now." August suggested, preparing to brawl with the taller of the two vrykolakas.
"One fine day in the middle of the night, one newblood got up to fight." She taunted, red hair flicking around like it was made of actual fire. August jumped into action, not even using a weapon anymore. I wondered if she really believed that her Greek wrestling training would really be enough to stop a very powerful undead. I didn't expect what happened next to even be possible, but August was stopped in the air mid lunge by an unseen hand around her throat. She struggled against the invisible hand around her throat as she dangled mid air, the vrykolakas laughing evilly at her current victim's predicament. And then she threw August like she was a rag doll
"Oof!" August hit the stone wall of the cave with enough force to knock some rocks loose from their hold. "… Aww my arm." She groaned, rubbing her shoulder. I snapped out of my fear and charged at the vrykolakas going as fast as I possibly could, hoping to catch her off guard. Even with my super speed, the beast was still able to stop me with her supernatural power and push my back onto the floor with enough force to knock the wind out of me.
"No." I whispered as the wind returned, but just as she jumped, sure I was completely dead with no hope of survival. But just before she hit me, an arrow embedded itself into her temple. She fell to the ground, obviously in pain as she writhed and screeched, struggling to pull it out of her skull. I stood up and looked at August, who had managed to heal herself and draw her bow.
"Just call me Katniss!" She said with a smile, which quickly faded as she saw something behind me. "Look out!" But I had already turned around and started swinging before she could get the rest of her words out of her mouth. The vrykolakas was bleeding, not spilling gold dust but actually spewing a foul black liquid from her temple where the arrow had hit her and she had pulled it out. That bothered me more than it should have, but I kept ducking and swinging, but I was having a hard time getting a clear shot at the heart.
"You got any silver tipped arrows in your quiver?" I asked August as I strait up punched the vrykolakas in the jaw, sending her sprawling on the ground.
"Of course I do, but I'm not sure I can get a clear shot!" August yelled over my battling.
"Yes you can! Just wait for the right moment!" I answered, trying to keep myself from getting hit, while trying to get a hit. Then, I was lifted off the ground again and tossed aside, slamming down against a table. I tumbled to the ground, my whole body aching.
"You'll make a fine addition to my… hoard." The vampiric demon hissed at me as she loomed over. I tried to move, but her power had me pinned to the ground and unable to defend myself.
"NOT TODAY BITCH!" August yelled, letting loose another arrow that ended up burying itself into the chest of the first vrykolakas.
The noise this creature made when getting hit will forever haunt me. It was a mixture between a blood curdling scream, and a train stopping on a rusty track. I looked over to see the monster melting into a pool of horrible black liquid, screeching like a demon the whole time. She writhed and bucked, attempting to stay alive for revenge as her body liquefied itself into nothing, leaving a blackened red heart still stuck on the arrow and the ratty white dress she wore in it's place. I picked up the arrow with the heart and looked at it.
"Keep that heart!" A voice that came from the doorway yelled. I turned to see Annabeth. "I promised the celestial beings that I'd give them the hearts of the vrykolakas in exchange for the staffs."
"You promised who what?" August asked. "Slow down and back up."
"I promised this orb… thingy that's holding the weapons that I'd bring the hearts of their killers to them, and the killers happen to be the sisters." Annabeth explained again, taking the arrow out of my hands. "Gross…"
BANG
"What was that?" Annabeth asked.
BANG
"Oh no…" August turned towards the Iron maiden, which was shaking and splitting apart at the wooden seams. Just as expected, the entire thing burst, sending wooden shrapnel and spikes of iron everywhere. Annabeth and I hit the deck just in time, and August pressed herself up against the wall before anything could grievously injure her past the point of healing.
"I WILL MAKE YOU SUFFER WITH NO OTHER PAIN THAT YOU HAVE EVER FELT BEFORE!" The voice of the vampire bellowed. There was something odd about her voice. Well, aside from the fact that she was screaming louder than a shotgun blast. It sounded layered, like there was a deeper, more sinister voice behind it.
"I don't exactly like the sound of that." Annabeth said, taking a step back. The vrykolakas looked at her with a curious expression, and then Annabeth was suddenly and violently thrown to the ground by the vrykolakas's mystical power and then subsequently tossed into a bookcase, sending dozens of heavy books on top of her.
"NO!" August screamed, but was cut short as the same force shot her backwards into the wall again. Then it was my turn as she lifted me up into the air with her invisible force, and I was almost certain I would be thrown against another table and eaten. But instead, something totally different happened.
"Such a fair child." The monster almost cooed. I looked to either side of me to see that Annabeth was trying to stand up, and wasn't in good enough a condition to do so, and August was on the ground writhing in pain, apparently haven broken a rib, and was trying to heal. This was not good. "You take after your mother so much." She continued. Her breath smelled like old blood and rusted nails. "She's such a beautiful woman, she is. You would have been too, if you would have made it that far." I struggled against the psychic grip, but nothing was working. "I have a different plan for you." She got very close to my face and opened her mouth.
I would just like to say that I was nine when I saw the third Harry Potter film, the one with the dementors. My father and I had read the books together as a sort of bonding time between us after we found out about my dyslexia. Even in book form, the dementors terrified me, and the movie solidified my nightmares into my early teen years. The experience I had with the vrykolakas was exactly how you might think a dementor attack would go. At first, her sucking air into her mouth close to my face made everything feel cold. But then, as she continued without the need to exhale, it got worse. It went from cold, to the absolute loss of hope, to loss of feeling in my legs and extremities, to the point where I had felt like I would never feel happy at any point again, to accepting my death as it came.
I tried to counteract the attack by thinking happy thoughts, anything to keep her from taking my life away from me fully. I tried thinking about my first day at camp when I had met some of my closest friends when I was ten; getting an national award for one of my art pieces last year; my first kiss, the one I had with August in her room just six months ago; going to six flags with August for her birthday and overcoming my fear of roller coasters; sitting under the stars with August and Newman, not saying a word and just letting the world around us be still. Nothing worked as I continued to feel weaker and weaker, the blackness over taking me.
Suddenly, like a miracle sent from above, a loud roar shook the room like a freight train, and a huge body knocked the vrykolakas to the floor. I followed in tow, but I felt my entire life flow back into me. I lay there on the cold rock, feeling like I was floating between the two worlds. The world that August was in had become a swirling mass of chaos as Newman had found a way into the cave, and was tearing the vrykolakas to shreds while August, who had healed herself, had gone into a frenzy of blind, homicidal, protective rage over me, and had taken my knife as was fighting like nothing else mattered.
The second world was like floating in the ocean on a very warm day, but without any visuals to go with it. My body felt like it was engulfed in a liquid like substance, and was bobbing around in a nice, warm, happy place. A soothing voice talked to me through the darkness of this world, but the voice was not my mother.
"Easy now, lamb, you're going to be alright." It comforted as I slipped into reality for a split second to see Newman tearing the head off of the vrykolakas, and August savagely cutting the heart out with my knife. The black ocean came back as I drifted out again. Something about the voice sounded so familiar, and it wasn't just that the voice had called me by the pet name August had for me, which was indeed 'lamb.' That pet name was so obscure, mostly because August only used when we were alone, that no one in the world could have known unless they were all knowing.
No, the voice was very familiar aside from the pet name. "Just breath. In and out, float and drift like a jellyfish." It instructed. My brain, though still very fuzzy, actually managed to pick out who was talking to me.
Apollo. I thought to myself as I continued to drift between both worlds.
"Easy now, lamb. It's time to wake up." He instructed. "Just breath, you're going to be just fine."
Why are my updates weird and spread out? Well, I'm writing a musical, and my partner and I are hoping to get it to workshops by next year. It's gonna be big, we're really excited!