ADAD Chapter 24: Making progress

 Rey sent over the tracer, and a manual about how to use it. Darius spent a couple of days going over the thick tome, and then finally began to pour mana inside the compass, and found the castle.

 It wasn't so far from here. Only about forty kilometers away. He wondered why there were no zombies around their camp. Nebula was a small realm, after all. 

With the coordinates, he only had the teleportation rune to make. Teleportation crystals were heavily regulated, and so, Darius had decided to challenge the laws of nature, and make an array without one. That was easier said than done. The array needed an anchor for the teleportation to be completed.   

"Can't Mustafa teleport at will? I have never seen him with a crystal in hand," Anastasios asked. He was glad that no snow fell in Nebula. Still, the morning was chilly, and there was a layer of frost on the purple grasses. 

"I have a good feel for his mana, because of this," Darius held up the smell dispelling rune, which Harvey had sent them just yesterday. It was written with Katakana characters, and was something that Darius managed to replicate, after a couple of tries. 

"Then, what is the problem?" Anastasios asked. Surely, if Darius knew the mana sequence, then he knew how to get a new rune to work. 

"He does have an anchor, his heart. The organ that helps him pump magic," Darius told Anastasios, who nodded. 

"Well, just find a way to get our hearts to be anchors too," the vampire suggested, and Darius became pale. 

"I don't want to mess with such an organ," the demon murmured, and the vampire let him go back to his planning. Surely, there was something like a mana stone, or something similar, that they could wear around their necks. Anastasios took his katana, and then went out into the fields. 

He could swear that there was a rock formation not far from here. If there were any magical stones to be found in Nebula, then the ritual circle he had seen so many months ago, must have at least one of them. 

It could either be a site of worship, which is promising. Or one of Kilkreath's jokes. Which is going to annoy me to no end. 

When he reached the stone circle, he carefully picked up one of the orange stones. They looked almost glass-like, but were too heavy to be marbles. Anastasios poured some mana into the stone, and he was suddenly no longer in the field, rather, he was inside a building. Huge stone walls were there to be seen all around him, and there were shambling sounds coming from outside. 

The vampire prince went to the nearest window, and peered outside. There were zombies, hordes of them, shambling outside what seemed to be a castle. 

"And who might you be, morsel?" A suave voice asked him, and Anastasios whipped around, to see the necromancer they had been searching for, strolling towards him. 

"I... I am..." Anastasios was at a loss for words. How could the necromancer see him?

"Nice runes. You have an adamantine rune on you, which will make playing with you a bit harder than expected," Kilkreath allowed himself a chuckle, and came to stand face to face with Anastasios. "A bounty hunter?"

Judging by the necromancer's leer, if Anastasios said that this was what he was, he would have a terrible time. So, he straightened up, and gave a courtly bow. 

 "Prince Anastasios Vicente, here on business concerning Orestria Academy," Anastasios lied, and hoped that the necromancer would buy his lie. 

"Is that so? A Vicente? I knew a Vicente once, but he chose to be with his soulmate rather than with me. You look so much like my Vian," Kilkreat touched Anastasios's chin, and lifted it a bit. "His son, I presume?" 

"I..." Anastasios didn't like the look in the necromancer's eyes. Still, he couldn't give up now. He had to play the ruse to the end. 

"I am Octavian's son, yes. Father has never spoken about you, I am afraid. The academy sent me to..." the necromancer lifted his hair, to show a rune that made Anastasios's blood freeze in his veins. A truth rune, a tattoo truth rune, that could tell half-truths from truths. 

"So, Vian's son fell in my lap. What am I going to do with you, naughty bounty hunter?" Kilkreath moved closer, as Anastasios made a step back. The vampire prince tried to slice the necromancer's neck, but the titanium rune held. His katana broke in two, and he turned around and ran. 

 I need to tell Darius about the stones. I need to hide. I...

Anastasios couldn't even make it out of the floor, when he was stopped by a spell that forced him on the ground. 

"The thing about digging graves, young Vicente," Kilkreath spoke, as he neared Anastasios, who was clutching his chest in agony. "Is that you have to dig two. Are you alone in Nebula?"

Anastasios didn't dare to say anything. Yet, his silence was just as damning, as if he had told the truth. 

"No, you are not. I won't kill you; don't you worry. You are immortal, and will be young for quite some time. Vian I let go because I loved him. But you, sweet boy, you, I don't love," the necromancer's face turned almost tender, when he scooped up Anastasios into his arms. "That doesn't mean that it can't change, though." 

Anastasios managed to get just enough control of his limbs, to touch the mirror. He sent the Morse code of his whereabouts and how to get to the castle to Darius. That didn't escape the necromancer. Kilkreath slowly ran his hand over Anastasios's torso, until he felt the mirror. He took it out, and threw it out of the window. 

"Let him come. I love threesomes with soulmates. Something Vian and Netta never wanted. Pity, although, if they hadn't left me, you wouldn't have been born, now, would you?" Kilkreath chuckled at his own question, and carried the prince down the hall.