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-Ovid
Chapter Thirty-Eight: Lady of the Coven
Vera knew that Lisa hadn't had much choice, knew that she'd lied about as much as she dared to. Even so, it felt like a betrayal. It hurt her more than any silver blade. Vera would never have betrayed Lisa, no matter the personal cost, and Lisa had broken and betrayed her after… what? A day or so of being scared and thirty seconds of being threatened? Vera was so lost in her own inner misery that she barely noticed Sophia Clandest setting up candles and bowls of incense for a ritual, barely noticed her low chants as she swung patterns in incense and lit the candles. Instead, she felt the cold fury that only vampires can truly fear - none of the pounding pulse, none of the taste of metal in her breath, none of the sweating. The fury sat in her chest like a seed, inert in the cold ground but waiting to bloom.
Sophia Clandest dipped her thumb in a bowl of blood and drew a symbol upon Vera's forehead. "We open the gates to the beyond, we plead with our lord to accept this sacrifice, this unworthy but powerful soul, whose energies he may consume and draw close to being reborn into this world. We, your servants, commit to spreading your influence, to crushing your foes, and to despoiling those traitors who would rot us from within. Devour this unworthy soul, great lord, and treat her to the misery that only the hell-rent may suffer!"
She lifted Vera upon the altar and brought a silver blade to her throat, nicking Vera's neck just enough to draw a little dribble of vampire blood to the altar's grooved surface - Vera intuited that she had to be in good health for Abaddon to make a good meal of her. And, as Sophia Clandest waved her hands and chanted in her strange, ancient language, somehow more gutteral and more melodic than English at the same time, Vera felt she world gaping wide open, felt some malign presence forcing its way into the space of the chamber, and she knew she was about to be devoured.
She remembered the amulet that Maxie had given her - an amulet charged with Suleiman's blood. If she could unleash the charge, it might overpower the ritual. As strong as the ritual was, Vera had her doubts, but a slim chance was better than none. The problem was that she couldn't exactly perform the arm symbols to unleash the amulet's power, and she certainly couldn't reach up and force the stones open by pure force. She pulled at her bonds, trying to force her fingers into the patterns to activate the amulet, but it was too hard without her hands. And, as she tried, she felt something great and evil rising up to engulf her, and from Sophia Clandest's delighted, expectant look, Vera knew that the Lady Vampire felt it, too.
It was like being engulfed in cold molasses, like being pulled from the earth through mile after mile of soft, cold soil into somewhere cold and horrible and bleak. Like being paralyzed and placed on quicksand. Like some great mosquito's proboscis had painlessly pushed into her, waiting breathlessly to start sucking all that was good out of her. Vera's fury fought her dread for position. She wondered when Abaddon would start devouring her soul… maybe he'd already started. Maybe she hadn't even felt the tip of the iceberg of the thousands of years of agony she'd been promised. Maybe… she felt the malign presence withdraw. She sensed… annoyance, confusion, rage.
Vera had never committed her soul to Abaddon, and so he couldn't devour her. She felt herself hurtling up through cold, oppressive darkness, and suddenly felt the cool flutter of the room's air, felt the cool of the altar, the slight soreness from the knife prick at her neck. She knew she hadn't moved an inch, but she'd somehow been transported to a hell dimension and back in mere seconds, and she felt energy flooding back into her - as Abaddon fought to sever his link with the mortal world, his energies were bleeding off into Vera, too. She drew at the energy as quickly as she could, and with as little regard for the dark lord's power as she could. Strength surged into her like she'd been feeding on blood for a week, and she felt the steel of her shackles bend and snap as she pulled at them.
"Impossible!" Lady Clandest gasped.
Vera ungagged herself. "Says the bitch trying to summon a demon. If you want me dead, you'll have to kill me yourself."
"Gladly," she snarled back.
Sophia Clandest leapt at her with astounding speed, bringing her fangs to bear. Vera barely held her off, toppling over the altar and landing heavily upon the floor, clattering candles and a dish of smoky incense across the room. Clandest was on top of her, gripping her shoulders with crushing strength and pushing to get at Vera's throat. Even with the rapidly-dissipating boost she'd just got from Abaddon, the vampire queen was significantly stronger than her, and she was pissed. Fortunately, all Vera had to do was hold her body weight up and there wasn't much that Clandest could do to bridge the distance between them without releasing her grip. Crimson venom dripped from the vampire's fangs and Vera did her best to blink and turn her head to the side - she didn't know if she could get intoxicated through her eyes or not. Clandest hissed and pushed down, but she had no leverage. As soon as she loosened her grip to control Vera, she rolled away and was on her feet, treading backward over ritual candles, padding over the symbols engraved into the dark stone of the floor.
Clandest zipped forward and Vera dodged. She didn't manage a second dodge, though. When Clandest dove at her, Vera leapt, and then the queen vampire leapt, too, colliding six feet up and tumbling through the air, crashing right into the brassy crest of Abaddon dangling high above the altar. With metal and glass raining down from above, Vera and Clandest crashed down again, and this time the queen pulled Vera in, sinking her fangs into Vera's collar.
"Ahh!" Vera thrashed and tried to pull away, feeling the gauzy pins-and-needles sensation of crimson venom and the sparkling pain of razor-sharp fangs. Clandest bit down, sucking blood and her own venom from the wound, and it took Vera slamming back into a column to shake her loose.
Clandest was back on her an instant later, biting into Vera's neck - a much better bite, and one that could intoxicate her or drain her significantly. She tried to push the queen vampire off, but she was just too strong, gripping onto Vera with undeniable strength. Vera could feel the venom making her woozy, could feel the loss of blood like a cold spike slowly driving into her chest. She wasn't going to be devoured by Abaddon, but she was going to die.
The amulet! She still had the amulet. Vera reached up, wedging her hand between herself and Clandest, and cracked two of the amulet stones apart. Their charge activated in an instant, sending a palpable pulse out from Vera and sending Clandest tumbling back and onto the ground. Vera leapt onto the stunned vampire bending to sink her own fangs into Clandest's neck. Vera barely had a chance to feed before her opponent began to recover, slowly gaining strength, slowly pushing Vera back. In moments, she'd be back to full strength, and she'd defeat Vera decisively…
Vera spotted it in the corner of her vision - one of the shards from the Crest of Abaddon, dark glass and solid, shining metal. She grabbed it and plunged the thing into the vampire queen's chest, piercing through tough vampire cartilage, piercing down to her heart. She yanked the shard back out, plunging her hand inside, gripping the slimy, slowly-pulsing thing within, and yanking it out.
Clandest thrashed and bucked, letting out a piercing, keening shriek, but it was too late. Vera tore her heart out and, before she could quite registered what she'd done, she bit into the thing and slurped out the sludgy violet blood, feeling the residue of the queen vampire's power thrumming into her veins.
Moments later, Sophia Clandest's familiars clambered into the room, no doubt alerted by the loud sounds of combat and vampire shrieking. All told, it couldn't have taken more than thirty seconds. Vera stood, facing the familiars, her fangs bared, the still-pulsing remains of Clandest's heart grasped in her hand. One of them knelt before her and the others followed suit.
"Congratulations, my queen," she said.
+++++
Maybe Lisa hadn't given up on Vera completely, because she'd installed the vamp app on her own phone, which made her easy to find. In fact, hers was the only one currently registering on the program - all the rest had been deactivated, either because those vampires had been killed or because they'd learned about the app and either uninstalled it or deactivated their phones. In any case, Lisa's phone was currently headed down Route 17, so Vera didn't have to ponder too much where they were going: the Palmetto Pine Swamps, either to visit the coven chapel, to deal with Lisa out in the marsh, or maybe on their way to Moody's creepy-ass plantation. Whatever the case, Vera was going to get her.
Vera looked over the cars in the late Sophia Clandest's garage, each of them probably costlier than her parents' house. And, she realized, she still didn't really know how to drive. She'd barely passed a driver's license test five years ago and had driven maybe five times since then. Vampire reflexes or not, there was no way she was driving down to rural route 37 and finding Lisa in the swamp in the dark (which it would be in an hour's time).
"Um… so you guys are, like, my familiars now, right?"
"You'll have to dose each of us with your venom to make it official, my queen," one of the dark-clad familiars said. They stood at ease, staring forward, as if Vera hadn't just slain their former mistress and inadvertently claimed the title of queen vampire by eating Sophia Clandest's heart.
"Um… don't call me queen, please…"
"Yes, mistress," the man said.
"How about 'madame'? Will that work?"
"Yes, madame."
"Good." Vera took the man by the wrist and bit him right below the tattoo - a pattern disturbingly similar to Abaddon's symbol, so she'd be getting those changed at her earliest convenience. "You're my familiar now." She handed him her phone and pointed to the little locator mark on the overlay of Palmetto City. "You're driving me to that dot, wherever it ends up. Can you do that?"
"Of course, madame."
Two minutes later, they were streaking down French Avenue, as if traffic laws weren't even a thing. It was in one of those fancy Galvani electric roadsters, so it was as quiet as a whisper inside, and the shock absorbers must have been pretty damn good, because the pocked potholes of Longstreet were like gentle waves. Vera used her selfie camera to assess her wounds - everything had already healed up and the only evidence that anything was amiss was the incision in her scrubs shoulder from Clandest's bite and a few spots where her blood or Clandest's had soaked into her lavender-colored work clothes. She should have gone with black, but some girly part in the back of Vera's mind had insisted that lavender was now her favorite color, so lavender scrubs had been a go. She imagined this might have been the first time a vampire queen had ever worn medical scrubs.
They sped down Route 17 doing about 105, weaving in and out of the eight o'clock traffic, and not a one of the police cars lurking in wait thought to stop them. Vera wondered whether they recognized the car or whether any rich asshole driving at unsafe speeds was immune to speed traps. Soon, they were on the rural back roads at a mere 50 mph or so - still way too fast for that road - kicking up gravel and probably doing hell to the roadster's undercarriage. Soon, they were at the spot of Lisa's phone - or at least as close as they could get without going off-road.
"Wait here," Vera said.
"Yes, madame."
She could tell that 'madame' was going to get old pretty fast, too. Could she just have them call her 'Vera'? Would that be too informal for a vampire-familiar relationship? It was a thing to worry about another time. She hopped out of the passenger seat, grabbed her phone, and headed off into the Pine Swamps, taking the only path that didn't quickly descend into murky muck.
It wasn't quite nighttime yet. The sun hadn't yet set - or at least it wouldn't have if Vera was on open ground. As it was, the sun was out of sight, posing no threat to even the freshest youngbloods, painting the western sky blood red through the scrub and marsh pines. All around her, Vera could hear the nighttime denizens of the swamp awakening - crickets, nocturnal frogs, and a few whitetail deer still scavenging before nightfall. All sorts of animal life, but no humans and no vampires. She continued onward, jogging at a pace that would have been impossible when she was Verne, each footfall precisely calibrated for balance and stealth. This wasn't the pathway to the dark temple, which meant they probably intended on killing Lisa.
Vera checked her phone - she was right on top of them… so where were they? Then she spotted it off in the distance: a clearing in the swamp ringed with white stones. She crept forward… no, those weren't stones. They were skulls. Skulls with fangs.
"Why are we waiting?" Carrie said.
Erasmus Moody cleared his throat. "Because, Miss Carrie, I am waiting to hear word from my fellow masters. I'd like a two-thirds majority among the masters before I proceed…"
"A two-thirds majority to what?"
"I haven't decided yet. I'll wait for Xia or Arnold… no, he's dead. Xia or de Leon to weigh in, and then I'll decide whether I agree or not. My personal inclination is to keep Miss Lisa as my personal protégé, though she'll be confined to my estate at Chapel House until I feel she's paid her penance. Say, fifty years?"
"She deserves to die," Carrie spat.
Erasmus Moody wiped his hands together. "And she's already dead. Fait accompli, n'est-ce pas? Oh, do relax, my dear. Miss Lisa isn't going anywhere."
He paused and cocked his head - Vera was close enough that she could see them in the dying light, Erasmus Moody and Carrie with a bound and gagged Lisa in a big clearing in the swamp with a sturdy stone altar in its center. Somewhere to sacrifice vampires, or perhaps chain them up during the day and let the sun burn them to a crisp. Moody glanced to his phone and proceeded to chain Lisa to the altar.
"Mistress Xia votes for death by exposure, and I'm inclined to agree. We'll tie the girl up and let the sun do its worst. I'm sorry, Miss Lisa, but even a pretty petunia must occasionally be cast into the cleansing fire."
"What if somebody frees her?"
Moody chuckled. "Way out here? In the middle of nowhere? Miss Carrie, paranoia does not become you. However, this isn't the first time we've had a cynic - Charles installed a thingamadoodle… a webbing camera, I think he called it… and we'll be able to check from behind the suitably tinted mirrors of my Rolls. Sound good?"
"Sure."
As they crunched back along the path, Vera tiptoed to the wayside as quietly as she could and waited for their footsteps to recede. Then she crept into the clearing, avoiding the circle of skulls, and came around to Lisa, gazing into her terrified and weeping face. She bent down to her ear.
"I'm going to get you out of here," she whispered.
She pulled at the lock to the chains, but it was pretty solid. If she could break through it at all, it would take a while, by which time Erasmus and Carrie would be watching the webcam footage and could come out to stop her. She searched the area for a rock and, finding a pretty decent chunk of quartz, she came back and prepared to give the lock a vampire smash. But Lisa was mumbling through the gag, trying to say something. Vera untied it.
"It's a trap!" she whispered.
Erasmus and Carrie were back - they'd looped around and entered the circle from another direction. Vera briefly entertained chucking the rock at them but considered that vampires were pretty much immune to blunt force trauma - with nigh-unbreakable bones, rapid healing, and slow bleeding, a hurled stone wasn't going to do much. But she could still smash the lock on the chains, and she did so, crushing the lock and breaking several more links besides. Then she turned around to face Moody.
"I'm not sure who I was expecting, but it sure wasn't you," Moody chuckled - but it sure didn't reflect much amusement. "Why in tarnation would Lady Clandest let the likes of you go?"
"I killed her," Vera said. "I'm the Lady of the Coven now and you have to do what I say…"
"Do I, now?" Moody said. He approached Vera, his blood-red eyes dark and glassy in the night, his mustache quivering like it wanted to leave his face. "It seems to me that if you can just… whoops! Kill the old lady and become queen… why, I might just kill you and make myself a lord! Lord Moody! I do like the sound of that."
"Don't I… um… don't I have to agree to the challenge?" Vera asked. She had no idea whether this was true - there were rules for coven succession in Ghastly Spires, but she hadn't memorized them.
"Well… yes," Moody said slowly. Then he winked. "But in these trying times, who can be a stickler? Miss Carrie, are you going to tattle on me if I kill our little Benedict Arnold without going through all the proper channels?"
"I'm sure as shit not, Master Moody," Carrie said. "I might even help you do the deed."
"Oh good. I thought you might say that," he said.
With that, he pulled a silver knife from a hip sheath and stalked toward Vera, his pearly teeth glinting in the moonlight. He took quick lunges once… twice… three times, each luge lightning-fast like the crack of a whip, forcing Vera back toward the altar.
"Vera! Behind you!" Lisa shouted.
Suddenly, Carrie was on her back, arms around Vera's neck, snarling with anger. Moody lunged again, but Vera was a lot stronger than Carrie and managed to twist her right into the knife's path, making her cry out and loosen her grip. Vera danced away as Moody recovered his knife from Carrie's side and slunk forward, his eyes never leaving her. He bobbed, feinted, and leapt forward at terrible speed. Vera barely had time to dodge, but he managed to correct in mid-leap somehow and knock her over. He straddled her, pressing the blade down toward Vera's sternum. To Vera's surprise, she was about evenly-matched with Moody. Something in her encounter with Sophia Clandest had left her stronger than before, slightly stronger than the larger and centuries-old Erasmus Moody (though not as strong as Clandest had been). But he also had the leverage advantage, and so they were at a stalemate… until Carrie recovered and approached them, hefting the larger chunk of the stone Vera had used to smash the lock…
And, since the lock was smashed, Lisa had managed to free herself. She threw the heavy chain around Carrie's neck and yanked her back before diving toward Vera and Moody. Vera wondered just what she was trying to accomplish - to intercept the knife? To act as a human (vampire) shield? No, it turned out she was reaching for Vera's amulet. She pulled the stones apart, unleashing its remaining power.
Carrie screamed. Moody bellowed. And, more importantly, he was tossed into the air like a ragdoll, his silver dagger soaring somewhere into the dark of the pine swamps. Even Lisa was thrown back, though not by quite as much - for whatever reason, she was only partly affected by the discharge. She regained her composure and leapt onto Carrie, straddling her and biting into her chest. Vera zipped over to join her, checking for Moody before crouching down to help dose and drain Carrie. By the time they finally subdued Carrie for good, they'd been at it for a good five minutes - she'd been a hell of a fighter. Vera helped Lisa up and pulled her into an embrace. Somewhere in the distance, Vera could hear a Rolls Royce revving its engine and screeching off into the night.
"You saved me," Lisa said, sobbing into Vera's shoulder.
"Of course I saved you," Vera said. "But… you disavowed me. You gave me up to be despoiled, Lisa…"
Lisa pulled away, her teary blue eyes suddenly filled with uncertainty. "If I didn't, she would have despoiled us both, and she was already going to do it to you…"
Vera shook her head. "Maybe so. But my Lisa would have never done that… sometimes, I feel like I don't know you anymore. I…" she took a deep breath. "I think we should take a break."
Lisa frowned. "What? Are you serious?"
"Yeah. I think being a vampire changes everybody - it definitely changed me. You're going to have to decide if you can be a good person again. If not… look, I'm still your friend, but maybe you should consider who you really want to be?"
Vera half-expected an angry retort from Lisa, but instead she just sniffled and nodded. "Yeah. I know. I'm trying, but it's so hard…" she squeezed Vera's hand. "Okay. Maybe we should take a break." When she leaned in to kiss Vera's cheek, she didn't push her away, but she didn't respond to it, either. "Thanks, 'Lady' Vera."
It's a little sad to see Lisa and Vera break up, but I can't say I had much faith in Lisa. She really hasn't given much, if any, consideration to Vera's feelings since turning, so it's really hard for me to feel bad for her.
It will be interesting to see how Vera handles the fallout from killing the coven leader. I'm also really curious to see how Maxie and Eva are doing. Oh! And we can't forget the next meeting with the family. So much to look forward to!
There'll definitely be some of most of that in the next chapter! Well... two chapters. I forget how I have things parsed out for it.
Considering some pretty major events went down in this chapter, the writing didn't really make it feel special. It all mostly happened like any other plot point. I guess what I'm missing is, is something makes the scene feel "large" (not an expert but maybe some more in-depth descriptions of the key scenes could help in that). I hope you understand what I'm getting at.
Regardless, I still really like this fiction and your other writing, keep up the good work!
Thanks for the feedback. I suspect that what's missing here, though, is almost the opposite of a literally "large" scene - there's lots of action and action description, including how people/vampires are reacting, but there's very little *emotion* here. Part of that is because I've deliberately made my vampires more ruled by instinct than feelings. But I think 3-4 short passages of genuine emotion, whether of terror, regret, love, etc. would make the chapter much more impactful. Maybe I'll go back and add a little of that in later. Because who cares if you've killed the vampire queen if you treat it with the emotional bandwidth of a department store mannequin?
@OvidLemma Yeah, it's the emotions. Vera just didn't have much of any real reaction to what was happening. While having vampires be a little emotionless might be fitting, it seems to be problem when you intentionally reduce the feelings of the main character. The story just gets more distanced from the reader. But I don't think that instincts really clash with being emotional.
@messschieber You're right, instincts and emotions aren't mutually exclusive. I should have been clearer: vampires don't have the same pulse-pounding adrenaline-driven emotions that humans often have. When they do get a sudden jolt of feeling, it's usually because some kind of primal instinct has been triggered and not because they've caught a case of big feels. However, I think it would add depth to Vera's character to have her clearly feeling and displaying more emotion. She displays some, to be sure, but she acts as more of an actor and reactor to events than many of my other characters.
Aww bittersweet reunion. So it was Lisa simply looking out for herself. Shame.
Poor Lady Vera. And she still has to deal with Moody.
When I was writing this story, I asked my peeps on Patreon whether they wanted the happy, dark, or middle ending to this story, and the favorite by a pretty broad margin was middle. This is sort of the result of that - I couldn't in good conscience just have Lisa's many oversights and little (and not-so-little) slights of Vera's concerns and interests go unchecked. Rather than having Lisa instantly become a better person or have Vera become a pushover and descend into a toxic relationship, I decided to have them part amicably. Maybe there can be reconciliation later but, for now, they need to spend some time apart. Regarding Moody,
he's escaped to parts unknown... perhaps he'll get his comeuppance in the sequel but, for now, he's laying low and licking his wounds.
@OvidLemma It certainly fits. She certainly was playing up being a vampire and walking a fine line of some moral ambiguity while struggling internally about it (the whole prayer deal etc.) even if we didn't witness that part all that much from Vera's POV. And I would bet many of us would stray a bit similarly if we were suddenly supernaturaly hot vampires. Of course not sure how much her oath played into that also.
If you don't mind me asking since you mentioned it. Does that mean we will be seeing a sequel in a similar vein to consequences at some point in the future. I know I'd love to see more of Vera, especially now that's she's going to be thrown even further into this world running a coven of vampires and even possibly some witches.
@Emmykat I definitely have vague plans for a sequel, though it will be a while. Sometime in 2021, I hope! I have so many different series to juggle, that's a while between installments. This is only a hobby for me, after all!
I'm kind of surprised that Vera didn't immediately go to try and finish off Erasmus. I think Lisa could have defended herself for a while against Carrie.
Anyway. Holy crap that was an action packed chapter! So vampires can absorb the power of their kin, and maybe even some power from a demon they didn't swear themselves to? Maxie's amulet really has helped carry Vera through a whole lot of sh*t over the past 30 chapters hasn't it?
I guess its time for some introspection for both Lisa and Vera. I'm glad we're getting to see this, hopefully we'll see some of it from Lisa's PoV.
If Vera was thinking clearly, she might have summoned the authority that she now wields as the Lady of the Coven to send a bunch of vamps and familiars to Moody's creepy-ass plantation to either finish him off or keep him from accessing any of his stuff. Unfortunately, she's not (yet) a shrewd and Machiavellian leader.
When a vampire kills another vampire, they gain a fraction of their power. If that vampire is more powerful than them, it's even greater. Vera got a good chunk of power from Clandest but, even so, she needed the amulet to be able to beat an angry and powerful Erasmus Moody, and even then didn't manage to kill him - elder vampires are no joke.
We'll learn a little more about Lisa's POV in a bit. Obviously, she's got her own issues that she's dealing with.