Chapter 1044: The Shadows Are Eating Them (Patreon)

“I can’t speak for the other vampires,” Thadwick said.

“Hmm?” Jason asked, looking over from where he was seated on the rooftop, eating a sandwich as Shade stood over him like a bodyguard. Or a teacher keeping an eye on an unruly child during recess. Thadwick had been standing nearby for some time, watching in silence while his own thoughts stewed away. The only sound had been the footfalls of the meandering giant, with the occasional crash as its ungainly passage bumped into a building or knocked over a tree. Night had arrived in full, with no moon and no lights from the dead city. That left the sky as a glorious blanket of stars.

“The other vampires,” Thadwick repeated. “I didn’t bring the ones loyal to me here because I didn’t want you to kill them. The others, the old Order of the Reaper, they serve the shadow man.”

“Umber.”

“I don’t think they will stop just because I have. Umber held a number of vampires back when he sent most of us in here, so he could send them in with directives as he needed. It was how I found you so early with a whole planet to search. I suspect that he’s been separately sending the others commands to which I have not been privy.”

“A contingency, in case you go rogue.”

“Yes.”

“Well, I can’t blame the guy. Not when going rogue is what I’m trying to convince you to do.”

Jason stood up and held out his sandwich. Shade took it and stored it in his personal dimensional space as Jason cast his gaze upward.

“Shade,” Jason said. “How big is this afterlife? My universe is only the size of a solar system, so I have to fake my stars so the night sky doesn’t look weird. Are those really other suns out here?”

“The stars here are not suns, but nodes of energy in a natural array that governs the fundamental processes of this afterlife,” Shade explained.

“Really? I’m going to need to learn how some of that works.”

“It will take a long time. This isn’t something as basic as the grid on Earth, or the natural arrays we encountered on Pallimustus. Miss Farrah is a natural array specialist, but this goes well beyond her expertise. This is cosmic level magic, on the level of soul engineering. Perhaps even beyond it.”

“Then it’ll be something fun to do together with Farrah. Immortality means we’re not short on time for side projects. It’s the mortal concerns we need to worry about the timing of. Speaking of which…”

He turned back to Thadwick.

“Are you sure? Things are going to get complicated with your vampire friends. And by complicated, I mean that I’m going to murder most of them.”

Thadwick stared at him for a long time before giving a hesitant nod.

“I want to find out who I really am.”

“It doesn’t work like that. You decide who you are, no one decides for you. Refusing to make a choice is choosing to be indecisive. Even accepting what others force on you is still a choice. Probably the right one, if you don’t want your head cut off, but it’s still your decision. You have to choose who you’ll be for yourself, and you’ll find a lot of the right choices mean doing things the hard way.”

Thadwick nodded again, more firmly.

“Good,” Jason said. “And don’t worry about getting your head cut off, it’s not that bad. Mine’s been cut off, impaled, smooshed into paste, exploded. It’s fine.”

“Mr Asano,” Shade said pointedly. “You are not a good example of, or frankly to, anyone ever.”

“Probably true,” Jason said. “Alright, next steps. If we have a chat with your vampire brethren about joining Team Good Guy, how do you think that will go?”

“I wouldn’t,” Thadwick said. “My own people will be with me, but I will need to return to our lair for them. The others are ultimately controlled by the vampires who created them, and Umber has kept them away from me to prevent me compromising his control. Either they have hidden away and not shown themselves or were never sent through in the first place. Even without Umber having them to wield, I would not trust any of the other vampires that agree to turn on the shadow man. They would likely be biding their time to betray us. They’re probably getting ready to attack right now; I’ve been up here with you too long.”

Jason frowned.

“I told you that I can’t afford to have a hostile vampire army at my back. If they aren’t with us, I have to kill them.”

Thadwick grimaced, then steeled his expression.

“I understand. I think they were going to kill me eventually either way. Even so, I don’t want to be the one to…”

“I won’t ask you to do that. Get to your own people. Take them to one of the uncorrupted cities.”

“I’ll probably have to fight my way clear, if I leave you behind peacefully.”

Jason pulled the hood of his cloak up, hiding his face.

“You don’t have to worry about that.”

***

“What is he doing?” Veeman asked. “He’s been up there since before the sun went down.”

While not one of the sires with absolute command over the vampires, Veeman was part of the leadership, entrusted with information kept even from Thadwick.

“Maybe that’s what he’s doing,” Grosvener suggested. “Asano is known for being a talker. Thadwick might be stalling until the sun is gone.”

They were a dozen floors up in a ruined skyscraper, the shattered windows giving then a view of the adjacent building where Thadwick and Asano were. Veeman looked out into the night, his eyes glowing blue as their magic allowed his vision to pierce the darkness. Thadwick stalling was plausible, but he didn’t buy it. Thadwick’s reliability as a leader had always been in question, at least to Veeman. While the former Order of the Reaper was the main force of the vampiric army, Thadwick’s close cadre of non-order vampires were always sheltered and isolated. Never put into danger, barely put in contact with the others at all.

“I think he’s turning on us.”

“You always think he’s turning on us.”

“It’s time we go up there and deal with both of them.”

“Taking on Asano alone is one thing, but you want to take them both on?”

“The only thing that makes Thadwick a threat is that weapon, and it does nothing to us.”

“But we won’t have it on our side for handling Asano.”

“We don’t need it. Asano has never faced this many of us. You think he can handle hundreds of energy vampires, with our power suppression technique?”

The vampire turned around after no response came and he realised he was alone.

“Grosvener?” he called out.

***

Veeman navigated the rubble that had once been an overpass. Freshly broken by the wandering giant, dust filled the air, blocking even enhanced vampiric sight. Relying on smell and the ability to sense heat, he found Anjelica huddling under a concrete pylon that had once held up a section of the overpass. She almost lashed out as he emerged from the dust cloud before stopping as she recognised him.

“They haven’t got you then?” she asked.

“What is happening?” Veeman asked. “I went to Lirin and Callen’s positions and they were gone.”

“People are vanishing. It’s like the shadows are eating them.”

“We can see through darkness.”

“I don’t think the darkness cares.”

“Asano’s shadow companion isn’t powerful enough to be doing this.”

“We should run.”

“No. We regroup and we fight.”

“Do you think Asano is even still up there? Either he dealt with Thadwick or Thadwick turned on us, and now we’re being hunted.”

“Then we hunt them right ba—”

His words were cut short as strange limbs reached out from the pylon’s shadow, snatching Anjelica into it. Veeman’s eyes glowed as he increased his ability to see through darkness, but she was gone, the shadow empty. The appendages had been strange, angular and with too many joints, like arms with multiple elbows. They had looked more like blackened tree branches than the limbs of a living creature.

“What is going on?” he snarled.

***

Jason grinned.

Ability: [Hand of the Reaper] (Dark)

Current rank: Diamond 0 (00%).

Effect (diamond): Inflicts the [Inexorable Demise] condition. Enemies can be forcibly shadow-jumped.

[Inexorable Demise] (affliction, curse): This affliction and any disease and poison effects other than [Creeping Death] cannot be cleansed, negated or removed while any instances of [Creeping Death] are in effect. Effect ends if no instances of [Creeping Death] are in effect.

[Creeping Death] (affliction, disease, damage-over-time, stacking): Inflicts necrotic damage-over-time. Additional instances have a cumulative effect.

Hostile teleportation abilities were rare and typically high-rank effects, even then having various restrictions. Something like Clive’s Juxtaposition spell that could teleport enemies at iron-rank was astonishingly uncommon, although the need to swap the position of an enemy and an ally meant that it had to be used with care. Jason gaining the ability at diamond-rank was more typical, and needing to pull his foes through shadows was quite forgiving, as such powers went.

He’d been able to pick off the vampires unnoticed at first. He used Shade for scouting before yanking them through the shadows and dispatching them quietly, afflictions and isolation getting through even gold-rank endurance. The various groups started panicking as more of their number went missing. Jason always left at least one survivor in each group to find the others and share their fear. As the vampires gathered together, he couldn’t go entirely unseen, but that only escalated the impact of his tactics. Seering their fellows dragged into shadows and vanish only heightened their growing panic.

They started moving as a large group, putting aside any pretence at stealth. They swept the city, eyes glowing blue as they peered into every shadow. The occasional corrupted was no match for them, only the giant being an actual threat. The shambling creature was easy enough to avoid, the sound of its passage echoing through the city.

To their surprise, the vampires found Jason not skulking through the shadows but standing in the street. His cloak shone with stars, like the sky above, while his eyes in the dark hood were glowing nebulas. Two orbs floated around him, larger versions of his own eyes. Veeman stepped forward, staring in confusion.

“Why?” he asked, getting no response. “Did you turn Thadwick against us?”

Jason continued to stand in silence.

“There are two hundred of us!” Veeman yelled, burning his anxiety off with hot anger. “You think you can beat us all?”

“One hundred and seventy-eight,” Jason said, his voice icy granite as he finally replied.

“What?”

“There aren’t two hundred of you. One hundred and seventy-eight are all that’s left.”

“Twenty of us are enough to shut down your powers.”

Again, Jason didn’t respond.

“Take him,” Veeman snarled.

As power surged from within the vampires to lock down Jason’s abilities, the Shade bodies hidden close to every vampire started draining mana. The vampires flinched in surprise, their power disrupted, while Jason launched into action. The energy vampires recovered almost immediately, their nature allowing them to shrug off an energy drain in just seconds. In a gold-rank fight, however, a few seconds could make all the difference.

By the time the vampires had recovered and successfully blanketed Jason in suppressive power, the damage had been done. He’d already made a handful of attacks and chanted spells so fast they were just a hum to normal hearing. They had all landed on Veeman, who had been closest, and had been followed by one of the orbs sinking into his body. Blue and orange butterflies flittered out of him, swiftly spreading to the other vampires. These fresh victims produced more butterflies in turn, spreading swiftly through the rest, who had clustered together out of fear. The winged affliction carriers flowed through the group like a tidal surge, sealing their fates.

Jason watched as the glowing butterflies rose like a mushroom cloud to light up the night. He turned from the vampires, already being consumed by his afflictions, their suppression fading from him as quickly as it had taken hold. Colin, who didn’t like emerging from Jason in the afterlife realm, made a rare appearance. Blood gushed from Jason’s hand, turning into a pile of leeches bound into humanoid shape by bloody rags.

“Yes,” Jason said. “You can have them.”

Shade and Gordon appeared at Jason’s side as they watched Colin shamble towards the suffering vampires.

“You were right, Mr Asano,” Shade said. “Holding back the mana drain to disrupt the vampires until the decisive fight was worthwhile.”

“It was only going to work once against their kind,” Jason said. “They would be ready for it if we tried it again.”

He looked up at the blazing light of the butterfly cloud now obscuring the sky.

“I daresay that oblivious giant has finally noticed us. Bring your little fellows along, Gordon. Let’s see how the big guy handles them.”

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