The animal scream cut into Gliss like a blade and she froze for just a moment. Then her senses reasserted themselves and she whirled round. Through wide, disbelieving eyes, she saw Capper thundering down the corridor toward her, his axe drawn back to swing. Her mind spun in confusion. What was he doing here, and how had he tracked her down? But those answers could wait – the fact was, he was here and from the look of it, he wanted to kill her.
Her survival instincts kicked in with a vengeance and she turned and ran.
Twisting through several passages, Gliss could feel him closing in on her, racing along on wings of wrath. She turned left, right, left and zeroed in on one of the clan smithies' workshops, slamming a shoulder into the door with enough force to rip it off its hinges. She stumbled into the room and looked around frantically for something to defend herself with, acutely conscious of the raging firestorm of his Aspect churning down the hallway after her.
Darting between the tables, she lunged forward and swept up a newly-mended sickle from one of the worktops. Gliss spun and swung in the nick of time as Capper's axe came scything down towards her.
Their weapons smashed together with a deafening clang of metal on metal, and the sheer impact threw her back against the work bench. Pain jolted up her spine as she smacked into it, but there was no time to dwell on it as the axe fell again. She twisted aside, leaving the blade to smash a head-sized divot in the sturdy work surface, and scrambled backwards raising the sickle to defend herself.
Capper turned, his full vampire visage on display, fangs bared with rage, pupils dilated to searing pinpricks of venomous black and his Aspect roiling around him like a storm. He took a heavy step forward, then another...
"Capper, please," she said desperately. "You don't under-"
His howl of fury cut her off as he lunged forward again, swinging the axe with enough force to break her in half. Gliss just barely deflected the swing to one side, stumbling back from the reverberations it sent through her body.
It was then that she realised that Capper was no longer thinking or listening. Drawing on the well of anger that she'd created with her betrayal, he simply let it flow, and the outpouring of emotion filled him with extraordinary strength, even by vampire standards. He'd relinquished control, now a berserk killing machine that wanted nothing except to murder her.
She parried her way back through the workshop, Capper's wildly swinging axe leaving a trail of destruction in their wake. One swing drove the axe so deep that it lodged into one of the surfaces, but as she stepped forward to try and disarm him completely, he lunged into her, ramming a shoulder squarely into her sternum with the force of a wrecking ball. A yelp of surprise escaped her lips and the force launched her backwards until she smashed into a section of metal shelving.
Gliss crashed to the ground, shielding her head from the falling lumps of metal and tools that rained from her impact. She scrambled upright, scooping up her sickle and turning to see Capper wrench his axe free from the work surface in a blizzard of pulverised wood.
"Capper, you've got to listen to me!" she yelled desperately, trying to pierce through that curtain of bloodlust.
"Like I listened to you before?!" he screamed back, advancing on her. "My best friend is dead, our clans are going to war and I may never be able to go home; all because I listened to you, you lying, traitorous bitch!"
And then he was swinging again. She had never seen anyone or anything so hell-bent on death. What was worse, she couldn't even blame him. She had used him, betrayed him, and judging from his words, her act of luring the Baelock vampires into attacking the Glaive compound had resulted in dire consequences.
Right now, though, none of it could be made right if she died. Gliss ducked the first murderous arc, parried away the reverse stroke and manoeuvred her way to the door of the room, trying to buy more fighting space and somehow ride out this wave of rage until she could actually talk to him.
All the while the vast presence of the First continued to throb in the back of her mind.
They burst out into the corridor in a maelstrom of energy. Gliss pivoted as Capper came flying at her, using his own momentum to send him flying past her and straight into the opposite wall. He was moving so fast he left a man-shaped dent in the concrete, but he didn't seem to register the pain, shaking off loose dust and masonry and spinning to face her.
She hurled herself at him before he could renew his charge, trying to stop him building up momentum with his greater size and strength. The sickle blade bit against his axe haft and she rammed him back against the wall, her fangs sliding to the fore and irises dilating to blackness as she exerted herself. A strangled growl slid between clenched teeth as she fought to hold Capper in place. Then he shifted position slightly and before she could adjust his knee rocketed up into her stomach with enough force to lift her into the air.
Gliss smashed into the ceiling and came tumbling unceremoniously back down to earth, only to find Capper standing over her, axe raised. Instinctively she rolled towards him and lashed out, her heavy boot smashing against his ankles and sweeping his legs out from under him. With a grunt of surprise he fell, thudding to the floor and she scrambled away from him. She hit the opposite wall and pushed herself to her feet, but Capper wasn't far behind her.
"You have to stop this," she pleaded as he turned his wild stare on her. "I know what I did, and I'm not asking for your forgiveness. I made a mistake and we've set something loose."
"I heard." He shook his head. "Your friend told us you woke up the First? Even for you that's over the edge."
"Capper, you can't understand," she growled, circling with her sickle hanging loosely by her side. "I didn't have a choice."
"You really expect me to believe that?" he laughed bitterly. "You chose to betray me and start a war while you were at it. I trusted you. Do you have any idea what you've done?!"
Gliss felt her anger rising, overriding the guilt. "I did exactly what you would have done if you were in my position. I had orders from my Elders, and you have no idea what they would have done to me if I hadn't followed through. I'm not proud of what I did, but I had to do it."
"I don't care!" He stopped moving, shaking with anger, his fingers gripped the axe-haft so hard she could see them digging into it. "You used me. I thought..." he shook his head. "I guess it doesn't matter now."
"You can hate me all you want," Gliss snarled. "But that doesn't change what's happening here. I know you can feel that presence. You know I'm telling the truth! What happened between us, it doesn't matter any more!"
"It matters to me!" he roared and lunged again, axe whistling through the air towards her.
She just avoided the blade swaying around it and lashing the sickle towards his head as he barrelled forward. He dipped to the side and the blade gashed the side of his head, but he didn't seem to notice, wrenching his axe into a reverse swing that almost beheaded her. She bent backwards and stumbled away from him as he rotated to follow her.
To her shock, she saw tears in his eyes.
Had she really wounded him so deeply? Had she meant that much to him? The cynical part of her brain found the whole thing absurd. She'd been a stranger to him and in a few short weeks it had all spiralled into a ridiculous infatuation.
Don't kid yourself, the other part of her mind chimed in. Think that was all a one way street?
She swallowed hard and took another step back. Her mind flickered through the images of that night at the Synod, the feel of his hands on her and his lips against hers. The scent of him so close as they danced. And the courage it had taken for him to follow her into the jaws of the Baelock clan. Her gut twisted with guilt.
"Capper," she said, raising a hand. "I'm sorry for what I did. I am."
"It's a little late for that." He shook his head, spinning the heavy axe effortlessly in one hand and wiping his eyes with the other. When he looked at her again they were dry and burning with anger.
"Capper, wait!"
They both turned at the sound of the shrill voice cutting through the air between them. The pair leapt apart, both turning to the source of the sound.
Gliss felt a coil of hatred wind through her stomach at the sight of Brooke at the head of a column of vampires. Her emotions were quickly replaced by surprise when she realised Capper had dragged a lot of unwelcome faces along for the ride. Finbarr stood protectively alongside her, while on the other side stood Arcil, swords drawn. What the Baelock Elder-Blood was doing working with the Glaives she couldn't figure out. When she'd left them they'd been on the worst terms possible.
"Stay out of this, Brooke," Capper shouted, fighting to keep his voice level.
Brooke stepped forward from the group, her face twisted with worry. "Capper, I know how you feel but reach out. Think – feel what's happening around you! This place is a slaughterhouse!"
"Listen to her!" Gliss hissed, glaring at Capper. "Whatever you came here to do, things have changed."
He tensed, taking the axe in both hands, body trembling as his muscles prepared to launch him forward. Gliss faced him down, resigned to the face that she was about to die, if not by his hand, by those he'd brought with him.
They were still standing there facing each other down with weapons drawn when Gliss felt the waves of power come crashing down the corridor like a gust of pure ice.
She saw the look of realisation flash across Capper's face as he felt it too, and the vampires stepped away from each other, looking down the passage where the surge had come from. Seconds ticked by as they waited. Then an enormous shadow appeared at the end of the hall. Gliss swallowed hard. Fighting for her life against Capper she'd stopped paying attention to the encroaching Aspect. Now it had returned, as savage and chilling as ever. Screams echoed down the passage, then abruptly stopped, cut off by a wet crunching sound that made her feel sick.
"The First," Gliss breathed. She looked at Capper with terror in her eyes. "Capper, I'm begging you, if you never listen to another word I say, listen to me now. We have got to run!"