Wolfwing's eyes dilated. Something was not right. He leaned forward and sniffed Dave. He wondered what he was sensing in this boy. Then it hit him like a ton of bricks.
"You are neither vampire nor werewolf! You cannot become a werepyre unless you are already one or the other! Be gone with you!" He threw Dave into the air as high as he could and as far as he could, and seeing as he was the king of Werepyres, he could throw pretty fairly. Dave flew straight through the timber of the roof and into the night sky. Dave was pretty banged up from the initial smash through the roof, but he knew that he would never survive the downward fall, even in his pristine condition. He saw the whole of Darkovia from an aerial view, then all of Lore. He had to be at least four hundred feet in the air. Two thoughts passed through Dave's head: one, Wolfwing was bad ass and the strongest anything he'd ever met, and two, how the hell am I going to survive the damn fall?
He hit the arc in his path. His body hovered in mid air for a moment, then began to fall. Perhaps if he angled his sword right he would be able to latch it to a tree and stop from hitting the ground. He had to convert his downward energy into potential energy as rapidly as possible. He spread eagle in the air and inhaled as much as he could. His guardian armor was weighing him down by a lot. If he hit the ground in that, most certainly he would die. He unbuckled the breastplate and back attachment. Hanging onto them like Frisbees, he spread them flat too. He felt himself slow fractionally, but not enough to make a difference. The castle that he saw came into view again, but a lot further away. And there was another castle. One that was well kept and managed properly. It was the castle of someone with a lot of class.
The trees were rushing up around him too fast for comfort now. He released the plates of armor and grasped his sword in his right hand. He swung the sword, biting the ridges into the trunk. Twisting around from the sudden change of course, Dave felt a paralyzing pain in his right arm. Or at least, where his right arm used to be. The force of the fall had torn his arm away from his body. He screamed in pain. Darkness clouded his vision. Wind rushed in his ears. The warmth from his body was fading quickly. He saw the trail of falling blood in his wake.
He finally hit the ground after what seemed an eternity. Instead of smashing into little bits, like he would have if he had hit stone, he splashed into a huge pit of sinking sand. The sand clogged his wound and stopped the bleeding for a time. Dave lay in the sand, completely unmoving, half submerged and wholly unconscious.
When Dave awoke, he was staring into the most beautiful eyes he had ever seen. They belonged to the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Indeed, every aspect of her was perfected. Her face, her eyes, he movements, even her voice. Dave was briefly reminded of Karen.
She wore a crimson over bust corset with a plunging V and accented with a contrasting red ruffle at the left hip. Her gloves were opera length single finger gloves, detailed with a tapered ruffle. Her skirt was an ankle length a-line with an exposed butter cream petticoat with six tiers of ruffle falling into a sweeping train. On her neck she wore a matching neck corset with a high fringed collar. Her hair was a long black chain of silk. "He wakes," she said. She took his right shoulder and pulled him into sitting position. Dave noticed that the woman wasn't the only other one in the room. There were many others, all were wearing black. One of them stood and walked over to Dave.
Instead of talking to Dave, he whispered in the woman's ear. She turned and whispered back to him. At this, he raised his voice.
"Oh, so I suppose now you'll let werewolves to simply walk in here and take up residence," he snorted.
"I do not have to ask your permission, Bledder. As last I checked, I rule this castle, not you," she said.
"But Safiria, he stinks of werewolf! How do you not see?" Bledder responded.
Safiria simply stated what seemed extremely obvious to her. "Because he also has Vampire scents on him. Also, he has no bite marks of either species. He is as human as the next man." Bledder simply shook his head.
"If you're sure he's a human, then turn him," Bledder said. If a vampire ingested werewolf blood, they could contract a disease. The purer the vampire blood, the more fatal the disease.
"Because I have not given him the choice of life or death yet. Be patient, when he fully comes awake, we will question him," Safiria replied calmly.
Bledder didn't take this very well, and Dave could tell, because he stomped off in a silent fury. Safiria turned back to Dave.
"Are you awake fully?" she asked. Dave decided that he was definitely going to died from loss of blood, so he thought that he had no problem in telling the truth.
"You're… beautiful," he managed to groan. Safiria smiled warmly, or at least, as warmly as an undead entity could.
"Rest now, you've lost a lot of blood. You need to sleep to recover," she said. Dave shook his head.
"No," he said. He felt completely out of breathe. "What am I doing here? Where is here?"
Safiria knew she would not get him to go to sleep willingly, so she would need to persuade him. "This is my castle. I am ruler of Darkovia, Queen Safiria, Empress of Vampires."
Dave nodded and leaned back, ready to die in an almost casual manner. His brain was screaming in panic, but his conscious didn't hear it. He was drifting, drifting…
Dave sat bolt upright. He swung his right arm to his sword belt, only to find that he was unarmed. Putting his left hand to his forehead, he shook his head. It was splitting like a log after a lumberjack passing. Hearing voices down the hallway, he slipped from his bedding and slid as silently as possible towards them.
"Why? Why would you do it?" Dave recognized the voice as Bledder's.
"Because the life was slipping out of him. And I believe that he will have an impact on the events in the future." It was Safiria who spoke this time.
"How could you know? You have no power to see," Bledder argued.
"True," Safiria nodded, "but I have a feeling in my fangs that he will play a huge roll in the upcoming war."
"War!" Bledder demanded, obvious shock in his voice.
"Oh yes, the werewolves have advanced into our territory. A vast army, to be sure. Over a hundred legions, so I'm told. And an extra addition to our armies would be valued. I've even been told that the vampyre slayers will be fighting with the werewolves. The nerve…" She said the first part in a strong, evident voice and muttered the final two words.
Dave left his cover and said, "So you've saved me to kill me, is that it? I have little skill in combat and would certainly be killed on the battlefront."
Without even bothering to turn to face him, she said, "Young vampyre, I think it would be wiser to not to talk to your Queen like that."
Dave laughed bitterly and spat. "You are not my queen. I serve no one." Before Dave knew what was happening, he was clutched in the hands of the Vampyre Queen herself, not the dainty beauty he had seen earlier. No, this woman, this demon had changed, her fangs gaining at least an inch in length, her eyes burning red like fire, and her claws elongated, like the claws of a tiger. Her black, silky hair was slightly frizzy and her face as pale as snow.
Without thinking, entirely on impulse, he swung his fist straight into her face, though his fist was not his own. In an instant, he realized that his arm was reattached and that it was stronger than ever. His skin was black, almost charred looking and his fist nearly the size of a small hubcap. He connected with her face, knocking her back and smashing into the nearby wall. When she fell, she brought a little of the wall down with her.
Dave roared a challenge. Bledder backed away, now frightened of the fully recovered Dave. Safiria looked up at Dave on all fours and hissed at his. Dave stood full height and held one hand up, palm up. With a sneer and a humorless chuckle, he pulled a Neo again, flexing his fingers and signaling to come on. Safiria, stung by the insult, launched herself at him, meaning to throttle him. She found herself with her face in the ground and no recollection of how it got there.
Dave sauntered over to her dazed form. Grabbing her hair and lifting her head, he said, "Your majesty."
Safiria laughed hugely and stood up. She had not been damaged at all in the altercation. In fact, she had been testing Dave to find out if she had made the right choice. "Excellent work, my young warrior."
"Please, call me by my name, Dave," Dave said with a hint of adrenaline in his voice.
"Well, Dave, it seems to me that you are ready to go to battle. I think I will have you as a commander." Safiria had a small smile playing on the corner of her lips. Dave didn't like the idea of commanding a small army against a hundred legions, but his fate in that scenario seemed to stand a better chance of survival than if he refused.
"I need to go back to town to restock my inventory," he said.
"Of course, this way please," Safiria said as she showed him the way out. Once out of the castle, he began walking swiftly up the road. He needed to find out all that he could concerning werewolves and their weaknesses. On a dead set course for Yulgar's inn, he dashed for all he was worth.