VAESEN - The Ruins of the World

Chapter 24 - In the Eye of the Storm

Out of the corner of his eye, Zane saw the muzzle flash. He felt a rush of air as the bullet whizzed just past his muzzle. If it had hit his head...

Then, a scream rang out, fading into a gurgling rattle.

Zane threw his head around and just saw the man fall to the ground. Blood gushed from the torn throat like oil from a spring. The gunman lay lifeless in the grass, his face frozen into a grimace of terror at the last moment of certainty of death.

"Traitorbitch!" Zane heard Casimir hiss, only a few paces away.

Myra stood only a few cat-lengths away from him. The long fingernails of her hand were smeared with the blood of the man lying dead in the grass beside her. Red drops came off the long fingernails and dripped into the grass like shimmering pearls.

Their eyes met for a heartbeat. The feral hunter's sun-golden eyes were interspersed with the red gleam of bloodthirsty savagery on the silver-white moon of the undead. Something in him shivered at the sight of her.

The full lips that could make a man forget to breathe had become a thin line. Every last trace of humanity had disappeared from her undead features. It was as if she had once again become her master's puppet. The ice-cold blood hunter who knew no mercy... Were it not for the dark veil in the shimmering soul mirrors that told of the wild waves of anger and reminded him of the black shadows of his own pain.

Casimir had made a fatal mistake: He had not considered that exposing this sordid murder would also awaken Myra's thirst for blood. He had made one enemy too many.

The big head of the feline predator tilted slightly as it nodded briefly to the undead before the massive skull flew around again to latch onto its next target. Growling, it sucked the air into its lungs, flattened its ears, and bared its teeth.

"Kill them! Kill them both!"

Casimir had retreated behind the line of humans like the greasy rat he was. Casimir held the gleaming bone-handled dagger in his hand as the cultists approached them.

Zane would have liked to snort contemptuously. It was typical for humans to hide behind the expendable peasants or to send others into a fight that the string-pullers had provoked beforehand.

Narrowing his eyes, Zane's gaze swept over the field and the cultists in their brown cloaks—cloaks that dated back to a time when people had fought each other before the veil was torn and the Vaesen came into this world. The emblem on their cloaks shimmered ominously, and it was ironic that a dagger played a central role.

Zane counted eight enemies as he fell back to Myra's side, limping slightly. There were nine of them with the fallen man—nine who wanted to make him a scapegoat and end his life like his brother's.

If he had fully possessed his strength, these few men would hardly have been enough to overpower him. But he was wounded, felt the pain pushing through the savage throbbing in his chest every time he drew the air deep into his lungs and strained the barrel too much. What's more, the followers of what Casimir called this 'glorious time' were all armed.

The barrels of the pistols and rifles glinted in the dark as the people lined up before them. Two stayed a little behind. With the stocks pressed firmly against their shoulders, he recognized the dangerous 98k carbines.

"The guns need to go," Zane hissed to the undead at his back. "Keep them busy for a minute, I..." he was about to offer when he felt a strange chill down his spine. His fur began to bristle instinctively.

It was the same eerie feeling when you didn't feel alone in a graveyard but couldn't find anything. A black mist wafted past him, and the mere sight of the haze moving against the wind, far from any logic, could make your blood run cold.