Chapter 6

A baleful scream shattered the night.

Crickets halted. Sleeping birds squawked. Squirrels cowered in their nests. Coyotes silenced mid-howl.

Powerful fingers grasped Luna’s shoulder, tearing her bodily from her task, flinging her like a rag doll from the circle of stones to strike an ancient oak, landing at the base. Her femur fractured, and her humerus dislocated and broke below the shoulder; the distinctive sound of cracking bones rattled through the clearing. The oak shook with her impact, dying autumnal leaves descending like hail.

As harsh fingers unceremoniously interrupted Luna, Aurora slipped with a whispery gasp to collapse supine onto the grass. Her arms dropped to her side limply, her right palm turned upwards, fingers loosely curled. Beads of bright red blood leaked from the fresh wounds in her throat. Irregular and weak, her heart continued to beat. Her breathing laboured to lift her breasts beneath the thin tunic. Bathed in moonlight, her bare toes twitched. Her eyes remained closed, almost peaceful.

The glimmer of an ivory orb coalesced in the palm of Aurora’s hand.

The quartz stones shrieked into the night.

Dazed, Luna blinked. Oak leaves tumbled down, tickling the skin of her face, her forearms, the backs of her hands. Her leg, her arm screamed in immortal agony. Everything hurt.

The primal screech ended as suddenly as it had begun, echoes ringing in Luna’s attuned ears.

Heavy, determined footsteps approached, leaves crunching, twigs snapping.

At first, the presence remained shrouded in shadow.

But Luna could smell him.

“Bron?”

Bron crouched, anguished, at Luna’s fallen body. Her broken femur and humerus bones rapidly and supernaturally knit.

“Three thousand years,” he growled urgently, “I searched for you.” He reached forward to trace rigid fingers down Luna’s cheek. The touch burned against her skin.

Inside her, she felt Aurora’s lifeblood coursing through dormant arteries and veins. She tingled, unlike even her previous tastes of the witch. Something whispered differently within her. She had drunk too much, she knew; Aurora’s life hung by a thread. She could hear Aurora’s stumbling heart, her raspy breathing.

“I cannot lose you again, my love,” Bron continued. “My Luna.”

Luna closed her eyes. By the second, that whispering voice, the lost hopeful girl, gained volume. Her arteries thrummed. Her skin burned afire.

Her leg and arm bones knit together audibly, as if she had never slammed into the tree.

Luna opened her eyes, staring directly into Bron’s feverish irises.

Quicker than the eye could follow, she placed her hands on his shoulders.

“I. Am. Not. Luna!” she screamed.

With all her strength, Luna pushed.

Bron tumbled through the air, striking a poplar tree a glancing blow. Luna returned to her Reeboks like a feline rising from a nap, her newly knit bones protesting. She watched as Bron dropped to the forest floor, cursing.

As he rose, cradling his left arm, his mouth bleeding, Luna stepped forward, fists raised, her weight resting lightly on the balls of her feet. She knew she could not best him. She was far too young, but she was more than willing to fight.

Visibly, Bron’s injuries healed, his split lip drying and melting together; his arm straightening, the bones knitting as if she had never even touched him. He smiled.

“Luna, we were meant to be together,” he said imploringly.

Part of her knew that. Aurora’s contaminated blood coursed, wearing away forty years of dependence and dissonance. Part of her began to remember.

“I am not Luna,” she whispered. Her voice filled the clearing. The buried voice underneath, emboldened by hope, struggled to break free.

Luna expected another surge of violence; she prepared for his violence, prepared to sidestep, prepared to accept another blow, prepared for broken bones, prepared for broken spirit, prepared to accept his fearsome wrath.

Instead of directing his fists towards Luna, Bron smiled and strode purposefully into the vibrating circle of stones where Aurora rested helpless and vulnerable.

“It’s me you want,” Luna said, standing at the periphery of the circle. “Leave her.”

Bron laughed. He dropped heavily to his knees beside Aurora, examining her face, inhaling her scent.

“A witch?” he asked, nodding. “She’s lovely. Perhaps she could become immortal, too?”

He paused to listen to Aurora’s raspy breathing, her uneven heartbeat.

Luna sank to her knees, denim pressed into the grass. Humming from the stones filled her ears.

“Leave her alone. I’ll come with you. I won’t fight you. I’ll be your Luna.”

Bron regarded Luna, his expression unreadable. He returned his gaze to the young witch below him.

“She smells divine,” he whispered.

He brought his forearm to his mouth. With a sharp click, his canines extended, and he ripped a tear at his wrist. Crimson blood dripped, even as his flesh began to visibly mesh. Bron extended his bleeding wrist towards Aurora’s slack lips.

The stones howled. Luna screamed.

Before any drops of his blood kissed Aurora’s lips, from the opposite side of her body, originating from Aurora’s motionless upturned palm, the bright ivory orb launched through the air, impacting Bron squarely in the chest. The force of the orb knocked him backwards, colliding solidly with the largest boulder. Bron grunted in pain as his body impacted the stone. Aurora continued to lie unconscious at the centre of the ring of stones, untouched.

Luna rose from her knees and ran lightly to Aurora’s side, standing defiantly between Bron and the witch. She knew it was a useless gesture, but she made it anyway. Her inner voice whispered insistently.

Bron rose, growling.

“I’ll go with you. I’ll be Luna,” Luna said evenly, standing her ground. Bron towered over her. She knew it wouldn’t work. Luna understood what that orb felt like; she’d experienced it firsthand in an alleyway far, far away. As soon as that orb had struck him, nothing short of Aurora’s death would satisfy him.

“Get out of my way.” His voice dripped with menace.

“I can’t,” Luna whispered. “Please.”

Without warning, the elder vampire swept his arm across, brushing Luna aside as if she were not more of an obstacle than a housefly. Again, Luna’s feet left the ground, her body helplessly tumbling through the vibrating air. This time, her body collided with inviolate quartz, and for a moment, the buzzing of the stones wavered. The base of her skull cracked at the impact. She cried out in pain and crumpled at the foundation of the centre stone, moaning pitiably.

Darkness welled up and swallowed Luna’s consciousness, despite her desperate attempts to keep her eyes open.

Bron returned his attention to Aurora.

He no longer harboured any desire to transition the annoying girl into eternal life. She’d hurt him and for that, he would not reward her.

Another orb formed in Aurora’s upturned palm, hissing and crackling in the moonlight. It seemed mildly dimmer than the first. Her breathing also resonated weaker in his ears, as if the orbs drew vital strength from her life struggle.

Bron glanced warily at the ivory light, the brightness filling his vision with multi-coloured spots. When the orb rose and advanced upon him, growing in intensity, he was ready. He swatted at the ball of light with his hand, knocking the orb as easily as an insect towards Luna’s motionless body. The orb faded before it reached Luna, melting into the night. His hand burned where it had touched the orb, the sensation taking longer than it ought to retreat.

“Fuck,” he muttered.

Another orb coalesced, but it wavered, pulsing weakly with Aurora’s slow heartbeat. The new orb failed to concern Bron.

“And now, witch,” he muttered as he fell to his knees beside her, “you die.” Even in her fragile state, she smelled alluring.

His fangs descended again with a sharp click and he bent to her exposed throat.

If he’d managed to drink her remaining blood, she would certainly die. His outcome weighed more uncertain. The vile potion she’d ingested earlier only might unmake infant vampires, intended for a gradual transition returning newly undead to beating heart, when such was possible. For an ancient vampire, such a transition would not tolerate well, the body, the soul, entrenched within eternity. No one had ever attempted such an unwise transition before. Of all this, beyond the certainty of Aurora’s demise, Bron was unaware.

Regardless, his teeth never reached the already existing wounds in her jugular.

A wispy ground mist rose, curling across the forest floor, obscuring fallen leaves, brittle twigs, and moss-covered boulders. The mist failed to penetrate the circle of quartz, but the remainder of the forest shrouded, sounds sharpening, odours muting within the vapour’s tendrils.

From the haze, a silhouette stepped, somewhat unsteadily, between autumnal trees.

A calm, steady voice penetrated the incessant vibration of the stones, chanting in ancient Latin.

“Aeterne Nosferatu, hunc locum relinque. Non hic es gratissimus.”

Bron paused, his fangs a handful of millimetres from Aurora’s unprotected throat. He turned his head, eyes bright in the moonlight. No soul had uttered such Latin in millennia.

Celeste stood, her palms both upturned, twin ivory orbs shimmering, luminescence reflecting from the mist.

“There needn’t be more violence,” Celeste said evenly. Her voice filled the clearing. “Leave and never return.”

She harboured no illusions her words would affect the fate of this encounter, but she must at least make the attempt. No illusions clouded her own fate. Slim as it might be, she only hoped that she might supply the infant Nosferatu and her unconscious granddaughter with a chance.

The vibration of the stones reached a crescendo.

Bron roared and launched his considerable bulk towards the spinster. She neither flinched nor cried out. Her lips continued to chant in sub-audible Latin. Of course, the Nosferatu could hear, understand, and ignore every syllable.

Bron succeeded in approaching within a metre of the elder witch when the twin orbs departed her palms. He only had moments to react, and it was not nearly enough. The orbs impacted with his breast, throwing him physically beyond the borders of the clearing. Celeste listened as his body crashed through branches and undergrowth before falling heavily to the ground. The forest shuddered.

She waited, straining her ears. When no further sound flowed through the mist, Celeste entered the circle, gazing upon her granddaughter lying peacefully unaware of the violence surrounding her, an inevitable chaos the girl had set in motion on this night of devilry. Aurora’s breasts under the tunic rose and fell in a laboured rhythm. She lived, although Celeste was far from certain she would remain breathing until dawn.

“Oh, Child,” she breathed. She bent and caressed Aurora’s cool cheek.

She straightened and paced to the female vampire, who remained motionless, crumpled at the base of the largest boulder. Celeste touched the woman’s cheek, similar to her touch of Aurora. Luna’s cheek was much cooler, but not the frigid pallor Celeste anticipated. Celeste’s frail fingers wandered to the edge of Luna’s throat, where her jugular hid dormant beneath the pale skin; there existed no pulse below, but neither had Celeste expected any.

Celeste slowly returned to Aurora’s side, kneeling down. She bent to Aurora’s ear.

“No matter what happens tonight, I will always love you,” she whispered.

In her coma, Aurora’s lips hinted a contented smile.

A twig snapped sharply through the roiling mist. Celeste sighed and straightened, rising to her full unimpressive height. She raised her eyes as Bron stepped from the trees, his lower legs obscured by boiling haze.

“That was fucking uncomfortable, witch,” Bron whispered from beyond the stone.

Celeste calmly stepped over Aurora, her hands clenched at her side. As she passed beyond the ring of stones, she reached up and brushed her long grey hair from her right shoulder, tucking it neatly behind her ear. She tilted her head to the side, exposing the side of her neck.

“Can you smell me, Nosferatu? I have the witch’s blood you seek. Drink of me until you are content. There is no more need of violence here.”

There was an implied bargain: her life for Aurora’s. She didn’t voice the compromise; even if the vampire agreed, she couldn’t trust that he would keep his word. If the vampire standing in front of her had been the infant, perhaps, but not Bron. The stones sang behind her.

The man advanced until he stood mere centimetres from Celeste. She kept her fists clenched at her side, head tilted, waiting placidly.

His fangs descended audibly.

“I will take her, your spawn, too,” Bron whispered. “And then she who is mine.”

Celeste inhaled sharply, silently praying to ancient goddesses who had long abandoned this world. Even as he bent to her throat, teeth flashing, plunging, Celeste remained silent.

So intent upon feeding, he failed to notice as she embraced his body, her palms opening behind.

Euphoria infused her, even as her life drained beneath his fangs. Darkness encroached. Her breathing descended into raspy gasps, her heart struggled, pounding into her ears.

I love you, Aurora.

As the darkness welled up to claim her, she willed the remains of her strength down into her palms. Her knees buckled, and she crumpled from his grasp, his fangs leaving her throat. He howled victoriously into the night, a primal scream heard for kilometres, disturbing dreams and sleep.

With the final vestiges of her consciousness, Celeste impelled the orbs from her open hands.

As she crumpled, the twin orbs merged into one globe, nearly as bright as the noon sun, arcs flashing across its surface. The brilliance expanded, lighting the scene, the forest, and the sky.

The sphere struck Bron squarely in the chest, lifting his bulk and tossing him like a doll tumbling through the vibrating air.

Celeste collapsed to the ground, unconscious where she had stood.

An ancient pine, its trunk a full two metres in diameter, stood peacefully at the periphery of the clearing, its base shrouded in mist. The old tree reached towards the heavens, significantly taller than any of the surrounding trees. Its lower branches, deprived of sunlight, had wilted and broken decades before. One particularly jagged branch extended towards the clearing.

The jagged branch shuddered as Bron’s thorax collided, the sharp tip projecting directly through his dormant heart, protruding slightly above his solar plexus. The impact of Bron’s body rocked the ancient pine from its lofty crown to its deep roots.