Carpathian 05 - Dark Challenge

realizing Julian was expecting retaliation. He followed suit, splitting off, taking a completely different route to make it more difficult for the vampire to score. At once the sky was lit with jagged bolts of lightning. Like arrows they fell in all directions, leaping from cloud mass to cloud mass and arcing to ward the ground itself. Sparks rained on the earth, and the sky lit up, raining fireworks.
    Within the display of white light, colors suddenly began to shimmer, blues and oranges and reds, tongues of flames like heat-seeking missiles. The colors raced back toward the oncoming vampire, swarming, gathering in number and strength. They raced through the sky, turning this way and that, obviously following an invisible trail. Again Julian was rewarded with a scream of rage. At once the ground shook, and trees were blackened as the monster retaliated.
    Far away, both Carpathians heard the faint, feminine cry of pain. Barack swore. He attacks her . He used the mental path familiar to his family, hoping Julian was aware of it.
    He is trying to draw her out. Can he do such a thing?
    Barack considered that. He had been in Syndil's mind. She was of the earth, as they all were, yet her gift was an affinity the rest of them could never experience. She would feel the earth crying out, the death of the living plants as they withered in pain. I am afraid it will be so. She will feel the earth's pain as we Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
    cannot. And she can do no other than attempt to heal it .
    Go then, stop her. I have instructed Desari to hold her there until you get there, and she has bound Syndil with her voice, but she says the pain in Syndil is torture to see. Go quickly, Barack, and know that I will destroy this monster while you keep her safe. Whatever promises you must make to her will be kept.
    Barack believed him. There was something of Darius in Julian Savage. A quiet confidence that clung to him like a second skin. A second attack on the foliage below and Syndil's soft cry spurred him back toward the mountain.
    Julian shut off his connection to Desari and the others.
    This vampire was his ancient enemy, very dangerous and highly skilled. The vampire had found a young boy so many centuries ago, lured him into a world of knowledge and excitement, then betrayed him and marked him with the darkness of the undead. He had tormented Julian, whispered taunts and threats, forced him to endure the screams of his victims, to feel their terror before he killed them. And he had shamed Julian. Taunted him with the knowledge that he would forever be alone, tainted. Shadowed. The monster was finally before him, and they would face one another across the battlefield alone, as it was always meant to be.
    Julian dissolved into a fine mist and spread out across the sky, moving in a semicircle toward the vampire's position. Three bolts of lightning slammed to the west of him, and he realized Barack was deliberately exposing his presence as he raced toward the mountain, hoping to give Julian more time to get in a position to attack. Julian immediately took advantage of the vampire's momentary distraction, streaking through the sky even as he built up fog on the forest floor so that it drifted in wide bands and began to rise in banks of mist.
    The vampire was directing his attacks from a cliff above the forest floor. Julian could see him now and vaguely recognized the remnants of the once handsome Carpathian male. Now the face was sunken and gray, wisps of hair clinging to the scalp in tufts, the body old and gnarled. The vampire had not had time to feed.
    As Julian materialized behind him, the vampire whirled around with a low cry. Julian smiled politely. "It has been long, Bernado. Much too long. I was but a boy, and you were telling me you were off to the libraries of Paris, in search of historical documents that might give our people a clue as to what really happened between Gabriel and Lucian. Did you ever find such a thing?" His voice was a soft blend of purity and confidence.
    Bernado, monster of his dreams, his life. This cunning, crafty ancient who liked to consider himself a great scholar.
    Bernado blinked, taken aback by the casual conversation. It was totally unexpected. He had not had a conversation with anyone in over two hundred years. "That is so. I was looking. I remember now." His voice was gravelly but thoughtful, as if he had to reach back to find the moment in time.