Shades of Grey

VIKKA— AUGUST 1844

I began to walk forward and over the top of my own personal Somme, following the ever-strengthening scent of hot steel and almost certain death.

Forma said nothing; she just walked silently beside me, exuding confidence and support. She would fight with me to the death and that made my stride all the stronger.

“Bine ai venit Vikka!” greeted a seedy voice in Romanian as we approached the black marble gate. “We have been expecting you, young Echo! Ah, and you brought a dog-faced pet!”

There was a sudden barrage of dark cackles that rose up steadily from behind the gate like a great sleeping dragon. Forma gave a brief anxious shudder and took my hand.

“I think you should know that I’m terrified out of my mind, but I’m still here.”

I squeezed her hand.

“And I’ve never been more grateful.”

“Just direct me to Evan,” I snarled to the Vanguards. “I hear he’s been looking for me.”

The sentry vampire laughed with maddened gusto.

“Indeed he has. Welcome to Vikka, young Hunter!”

There was then a great clank and a long whine as the marble gate opened outwards. I stiffened in brief disorientation as the previously tolerable palaver of the vampire citizenry suddenly attacked my senses in an overwhelming auditory harangue, echoing off the stone buildings and cobblestone streets. I found myself choking as the thick odour of sulfur and brimstone became enough to stir up a nauseating dizziness within me. My head throbbed as each groan of the machines and every spit of conversation shot into my eardrums like a bullet, echoing raucously in my skull. I clumsily tripped over a loose bit of cobblestone, dizzy from the auditory accostation. Several nearby Vanguards laughed rumbustiously at me.

“You will die today, young sightless Hunter!” chided a Vanguard from somewhere to my right. “Evan will destroy you and we will feast on your blood!”

I froze, rage welling inside of me as I thought of the soothsayer’s prophecy back in the Shadows tribal camp.

“Easy Grey, he’s not the one we’re here for,” Forma cautioned as she sensed my growing rage. “Save your energy.”

I took in several steadying breaths when I heard the cautious footsteps of various younger Vanguards approaching us, the hungry snarls growing louder and louder until I sensed a thick circle of them around us, poised with the savagery of Attila’s Hun army. I stiffened as they nuzzled me, inhaling my scent in voracious hunger and clamouring at me with dank, acidic claws. I felt Forma stiffen as they did the same to her. They wanted to kill us, there was no question about that; but something was holding them back, and I had a feeling I knew exactly what it was: Evan wanted me all for himself.

“We could rip you apart in seconds, youngling,” they taunted, running their cold fingers through my hair. “And we would enjoy doing so.”

They all laughed hideous cackles that reverberated off the cobblestone street and echoed off the stone buildings. I patiently waited for the laughter to stop and felt Forma shiver in brief repulsion next to me. She later described the scene of the maniacal, laughing, deformed young vampires as one of fervently nightmarish horror, an image that would haunt her nightmares for the rest of her life.

“I am not here for you,” I stated, boldly stepping out of the hungry circle of monsters.

“Yes you are!” they all hissed.

Several ugly snarls rang out in the air like demonic battle cries as their jaws collectively unhinged, their long fangs bared in preparation for attack. I heard them all lunge for us when an ear-splitting bat-like shriek suddenly pierced the air and stopped all of the Vanguards in their tracks. I could hear the disappointment slide across their faces: Evan had called to them and told them not to touch me.

“He is waiting for you,” one of the older Vanguards snapped. “You best not keep him waiting.”

“Thank you,” I responded in a dark voice. Forma subtly touched my arm and led me forward, away from the laughing Vanguards.

We walked for a long while, listening to the steady whirring of machines and the distant, disturbing screams of new victims, both human and creature alike. My head began to throb as my sensitive ears took in every sound with disorientating clarity: every whinny, every bay, every articulate human shriek was perfectly clear. I took in a shaky breath as I tried to tune them out, to focus on what I had come here to do.

“Are you alright?” Forma said under her breath.

“Yes…the screams are just so loud…”

A hideous, high cackle suddenly sounded from somewhere to my right, followed by the clanking of chains sliding across the rough cobblestone streets.

“The batty Hunter thinks she can kill the wicked Vampy!” shrieked a high-pitched female voice. Judging from the ear-splittingly high volume and the insane laughter that followed, I took this to be a feeder human: one kept healthy enough so that multiple vampires could feed on her at will. I heard Forma gasp slightly and cover her mouth in disgust.

“Grey, thank your lucky stars you cannot see this woman.”

“Is it that bad?”

“She looks like death. Her skin is pale, what’s left of her hair is sticking out in all directions like a gray cloud over her insane brown eyes and she is covered in yellow teeth marks from God-knows how many vampires have fed on her. I might throw up.”

I locked my jaw and turned toward the sound of the harridan’s voice.

“Where is he?” I asked strongly.

“Oh, no no no…mustn’t tell where the Vampies hide, they might return to punish Rosa! Will the Hunter save poor Rosa? No no no, because the Hunter’s gonna die too!”

The woman laughed and I heard the chains clank along the ground as she twirled in a circle, laughing like a madwoman.

“Are we revealing secrets to the Hunter?” said an ominous Romanian voice from the dark of the alleyway behind Rosa.

“Oh no no, Rosa was just sayin’ how mad the Hunter must be to take on a Vampy! She’s gonna die!”

There was a yank from the chain and I heard Rosa fly backwards towards the alley. I listened and heard a very clear puncturing sound: the Vampire was feeding.

“Yes, I’m quite sure I’m going to be sick,” Forma muttered as we began walking again.

“Stay strong,” I consoled. “We just need to find Evan.”

“Grey, have you thought this through? I mean, after you kill Evan, there will be an entire city full of Vanguards who will want to kill you. Isn’t Evan their king or something?”

“I don’t intend to leave any Vanguard alive.”

Forma stopped walking.

“WHAT?! Grey, had I known that you wanted to kill the entire city, I would NEVER have let you come here! I thought we were just after the one?! You know, to find out why he sent the Centaurs after you and whatnot?”

I heard paper rustling and I imagined she had pulled out the wanted poster I had pilfered from the Centaurs back after Commencement. I swallowed in determination.

“Well, as you said, after I kill Evan the others are not going to be content to sit back and let me leave. I need to destroy them all.”

I heard Forma sigh and hold her head in her hands.

“Oh God…my Hunter’s gone insane…”

“Relax!” I called, walking towards her. “We’ve killed hordes of Creatures before: we can do it again.”

“Your tendency to forget exactly what Creatures you are threatening to eliminate now unnerves me to my core,” she reproved.

Despite her unease, Forma took my arm and led me forward down an alley when all of a sudden a low, mechanical whine rang through the air followed quickly by a shudder in the street beneath us.

“Forma, what’s happening?” I shouted as the clanking and shifting grew to a nearly intolerable decibel.

“The city is changing!” she replied loudly. “Buildings are melting into the ground while others spring up beside them…the street is changing directions and altering its slopes…it’s like the city itself is preparing to fight!”

I sighed. Of course it is, I thought bitterly as the quaking of the ground began to evanesce along with the ugly mechanical clanks, until there was only silence around us.

“What do you see?” I asked quietly. “How different is it?”

Forma took a shaky breath before starting, as though she were unsure of how to describe it.

“I can’t. You have to see for yourself.”

I waited as Forma initiated the link and after the few familiarly painful seconds, I saw exactly why she could not find the words.

The buildings had enlarged and melted themselves together as other buildings sprung out of the ground, many of which had grown horizontally and melted together with other structures, creating more dizzying levels. The sky was no longer visible, for the outer wall of black marble had stretched over the massive, multi-leveled metropolis to create a barrier to the outside world. We were trapped inside a city-wide maze.

More mechanical whines and clanking began to echo through the caged-in city, but one very distinct sound rang out more cleanly through the metallic mess of sound.

Human screams.

Forma and I wasted no time. Maintaining the link, she immediately changed into a Felletus, a creature that resembled a ten-foot tall cheetah and would run as fast as eight of them, as I leapt atop her back. She galloped with purpose through the malformed city up three ledges of melted buildings and finally up a very long cobblestone pathway before we arrived at the source of the screams.

We passed through a narrow alleyway and emerged into an enormous courtyard that stretched up through the countless metropolitan levels and all the way to the black marble orb that enveloped Vikka. Along the ground were dozens of lifeless humans chained together by black steel manacles, all of whom looked to be just as sickly as Forma had described Rosa.

“Congratulations!”

I flinched slightly at the cold, familiar Romanian voice of the vampire I had sworn to destroy. Forma looked around quickly, trying to find the source.

“What is this?” I asked, gesturing to the chained humans.

“That was our primary food supply. I’m afraid we’ve been a bit more hungry than usual lately. I’ve just finished off the last of the live ones.”

He laughed again, his hideous cackles echoing off the twisting buildings and the great marble dome that hung over us.

“Break the link, Forma,” I whispered as I leapt off her back. She obeyed swiftly.

“Why has the city changed?” I asked as I stared into darkness again. “What happened?”

“The city has transformed because, unlike humans, we vampires like to play with our food.”

A chorus of unified and horrific cackles began to bounce off the marble sphere above and the intertwined metal around us. The travelling voices became a hideous tirade of distant noises and I found myself buckling as the sounds disorientated me once more. Forma changed back into herself and gripped my shoulders, holding me steady on my feet as the laughing ceased.

“I DID NOT COME HERE TO PLAY GAMES!” I shouted, rage overtaking me. “I CAME HERE FOR YOU, NOW STOP AVOIDING ME AND FACE ME LIKE THE FILTHY VAMPIRE YOU ARE!”

This time it was my voice that echoed around the expansive cave. I had spoken so loudly and with so much anger that I struggled for breath. Forma placed her hand on my shoulder in a gesture of steadying reassurance.

“How dare you raise your voice at a Vanguard…” sneered the distant Romanian hiss.

“Come face me and I won’t have to!”

I could hear the contemplation in the air — a plan was forming in his mind.

“How about you come to me?”

More laughter came; this time from multiple Vanguards crouched in waiting around the cavern and at various points around the multi-leveled monster of a city. The barrage of sound attacked my senses like the frontline of an assault but this time I stood my ground, in spite of the rising nausea and dizziness that followed the outlying voices.

I then heard a high-pitched whine of protest as a metal doorway slid open on my right. Evan was challenging me. I heard several more clanking sounds echo throughout the city as traps were set for me. He would not make this easy.

I set my jaw, squared my shoulders and confidently entered the labyrinthine metropolis.