Vampire in Atlantis

Chapter 38

Serai fell into the magic, the beautiful, terrible purple fire, and she surrendered to the pain. After all, she’d completed her quest. Succeeded at her task. She almost laughed. The portal would come for her, now that she lay dying with no hope of ever returning to Atlantis.

It had been a fair enough exchange. Her life finally held some meaning; some purpose. Instead of living or dying as a useless and unused specimen of breeding stock, she’d escaped and saved her sisters.

It was enough. It had to be enough.

She regretted Daniel, though.

A surge of pain smashed through her, and it took her a minute to realize it wasn’t from the Emperor draining her, or the bullet wound, which was healed now anyway, but it was the pain of losing Daniel, after having found him again. She felt as if she could almost hear his voice, calling her name, but then the pain took her again, and he was gone.

There was nothing but the brilliant purple flame.

Daniel expected the world to blow up, or at least that he would blow up, when he touched the Emperor, but it was another reality entirely. He fell into the purple fire, mind and soul, and was trapped, unable to find a way out. Everywhere he looked, there was nothing but the flame.

“Serai,” he called out, over and over and then again. For a lifetime; for an eternity. Lost in the fire, and somewhere in the back of his mind he remembered that he’d left the two of them unprotected against a dangerous enemy.

Not that he particularly cared right at that moment. If she died, he would die with her. One way was as good as another. Or so he thought, right up to the point when he thought he heard her voice.

“Daniel?”

“I’m here.” He ran, racing through the never-ending amethyst fire, searching for her voice in some sort of twisted version of the children’s game of hide-and-seek. Finally, finally , he found her, lying in another crystal case like the one she’d told him about. This one, though, looked exactly like a coffin.

“No,” he shouted, and he lifted her limp form out of the coffin and into his arms. He ran as fast and as far as he could, fighting his way through the flames, which now seemed actively to be trying to harm him.

She finally opened her beautiful eyes, but all he saw in them was death. “I’m sorry, Daniel, but I can’t fight it, and the Emperor won’t release me. It wants to pull me into its prism of power, and I’m not strong enough to escape. Please know that I have always loved you, and I always will.”

“No,” he told her. “No, no, no, no, no.”

The beserker rage fought to break free, and he allowed it. Welcomed its red-hot wrath, set it to battle the icy cold purple fire.

The rage won. The anguish conquered. Daniel broke free.

He blinked, stunned, and looked around, only to realize he was still in that damned cave.

“No. She won’t die here, trapped in the dark like a rat,” he said to Nicholas, who was staring at him with a surprising amount of sympathy. “I’m taking her away from this. Will you cover me from the soldiers?”

“They’re gone,” the boy said. “They pulled out about fifteen minutes ago. We were just waiting to be sure you were okay.”

Daniel shook his head. “We are not. We never will be again. But I thank you for your generosity.”

“You abandoned the Primus when you were finally making a difference,” Nicholas said. “I am sorry for your loss, but we needed you.”

“Then you do it,” Daniel told him, utterly indifferent. “Take the job. Make changes. Save the world. I have lived for eleven thousand years and am done with all of it.”

Ian’s eyes grew wide. “Eleven thousand years? Really? Duuude.”

Daniel didn’t even have the energy to smile. “I’m taking her to see the sun, one last time. I think she can hold on that long.”

Nicholas bowed to him as he rose with Serai in his arms. “I’ll do my best,” he said.

Daniel didn’t bother to respond. He just launched himself into the air, Serai in his arms, and headed for the most beautiful place in the entire area.

He and Serai would meet the sun on the last day of their lives on the very top of Cathedral Rock.