Her blood was boiling, her stomach churning, but she wanted to eat more. She was unable to stop. She was walking down a corridor covered in murals. She passed by the statue of some man and with a single blow sent it crashing down to the floor. A servant appeared at the end of the corridor and the second he saw her he screamed in terror. He did not attempt to flee, he was frozen in fear. Erica focused on her inner powers and immediately shadows engulfed her. She materialized before the human, having been transported there instantly. She loved using that particular power, even though she had discovered she possessed it mere moments earlier. A warm feeling washed over her whenever the darkness surrounded her. Her blood would calm down, at least a little. Yet nothing could sate her stomach. She grabbed the man by the neck and lifted him up in the air, with a wild excitement at her newfound strength. Despite her hunger, she held him there for a while, as the man was twitching, desperately trying to escape her steel grip. Slowly, she brought him in front of her face, so as to look him in the eye. The man saw her and began whimpering while she, with a sadistic smile, bit him on the neck, easily piercing his flesh.
Soon her meal had been bled dry and Erica, annoyed, let the body crumble on the floor.
“When will my hunger end?” she wondered.
She walked on, vaguely aware that she had been murdering all those present in her palace and that she needed to stop. She pressed open a massive twin door that stood in her way and immediately she felt joy, bliss. Dozens of people were arraigned before her; she was outside her palace now. The men were armed with swords and clad up to their necks in armor, positioned behind shields. All this held little interest to her; what mattered was that she could feel their blood, flowing strong within them, calling to her. “Finally!” she thought, “my hunger shall be sated!” The man leading all these warriors was looking at her, dumbfounded. He appeared as if unable to believe in his own eyes, he was shaking his head in vain, trying to dislodge the image he beheld. Erica was feeling as if there was something she was meant to remember about this man, but her hunger dominated her thoughts. She took a step forward and immediately the man grew somber. He drew his sword, pointed it at her and immediately the others charged her.
Her food was trying to kill her. In that instant, anger and hunger merged. She trained her arm towards one of her enemies and with her sheer will she made the blood flowing within him boil, just like hers, killing him instantly. Shadows enveloped her and she materialized behind them. She grabbed one by his armor. Yet the silver studding the man’s cuirass burnt her, making her scream in pain. She disarmed the man as quickly as she could but was unable to parry the swords of his comrades. Two of the blades slashed at her back, while a third struck her on the face, luckily not hard enough to kill her. The wounds were searing, it was as if her body was on fire, the pain was blinding. The men around her seized the opportunity and redoubled their attacks with their silver weapons.
Erica fell on her knees, unable to counter their blows. The leader of these men approached her, holding his naked sword. Erica vaguely noticed that tears welled in his eyes. The man hesitated for a mere moment, before bringing his sword down on her neck, decapitating her.
Drenched in sweat, Erica opened her eyes. The dream, yet another memory of Naram-Sin, had shaken her deeply. The man who had decapitated her was no other than Lucas. Erica got up, numb, from her seat where she had fallen asleep and approached the giant, who was still resting. Without realizing exactly what she was attempting to do, she placed her hands on his head, right on the temples, whispered “I am sorry” and focused her powers on him. Lucas woke up with a start, screaming in pain, but at the same time unable to move or react. Erica had now entered his mind, following his memories as if leafing through the pages of a book.
He had just killed his mentor, the one who had been like a father to him. The one who had saved him from the monsters while he was but a small child; the one who had raised him, who had taught him not only how to fight, but how to read and how to behave; the man who had taken him under his wing, along with his sister, when he found out that they had been orphaned. He was still holding that sword in his hands, looking in shock at the decapitated body before him when, in a blinding flash of light, Naram-Sin got up from the ground, with all his wounds completely healed and his head back on his neck, as if it had never been severed.
The battle continued, with his men attacking again and again, trying to defeat the vampire. Their efforts were in vain, however, as each time they killed him, the vampire would rise again. One by one the men succumbed to the wrath of the vampire, all but him, as Naram-Sin chose to leave him untouched. Soon, only the two of them were left standing on the battlefield, surrounded by countless bodies. He was feeling unable to fight on, his morale had been shattered. He fell on his knees, without a word, waiting stoically for his turn to die.
The vampire stood before him, proud and strong, drenched in the blood of his enemies, with a fierce determination in his eyes. He seemed to be enjoying the carnage he had caused. He stared at Lucas and something began to change in the way he was looking at him, something akin to guilt. Gradually, Naram-Sin was relaxing and Lucas was able to recognize again the man who had raised him. The vampire kneeled and the two of them came face to face.
“I entered a pact I should have avoided, Lucas, my son… A pact which sadly I am unable to honor on my own. I need help, I need you by my side. Refuse and I will understand, you will be allowed to leave, safe and sound, this I promise. Should you agree, though…”
He left his sentence unfinished, as his meaning was clear.
Lucas did not know what to think or do. Everything had changed within a few short moments. The only thing on his mind was the memory of Naram-Sin saving him from the monsters. He took a deep breath, nodded and closed his eyes.
Erica lifted her hands from Lucas’ temples and took a couple of steps back. The screams of the giant, while Erica was tapping his memories, had woken Travis, who was sitting bunched up nearby, staring at them in surprise and clearly exhausted from the effort required to remain awake during daytime.
“You could have asked me to answer your questions…” said Lucas as he was rubbing his head, trying to recover from the stress.
“I’m truly sorry, I don’t know what got into me”, Erica tried to apologize. She was surprised by his calmness, considering the pain she had just caused him. “It’s just that, for the past year, I’ve been unable to unravel this whole mystery, having to rely on sporadic dreams”, she went on to explain.
The giant watched her carefully, as if he were weighing her response with his eyes. Eventually, he nodded, got a pen from his pocket, looked around for some paper and wrote something on it. He passed the note to her and said:
“I did not take much with me when I left my home, but I always took care to keep digital copies of any rare documents I would come across. Here”, he said, showing the piece of paper to her, “are the details to get access to my account; in it you’ll find all that I managed to discover. It’s not much, but it may prove useful. Now let me sleep and, should you need something, next time just wake me up!” he said, trying to color his last words with a hint of humor.
He returned to his seat and tried to relax again while Erica, wasting no time, booted up her computer and went on to look at the documents Lucas had mentioned.
Erica spent hours in front of the computer, reading digitized copies of ancient manuscripts. Her powers and knowledge she had inherited from Naram-Sin were allowing her to decipher a lot of these, while those texts that she couldn’t read in their original form had been translated by Lucas. Many of these proved pointless, indeed, but some extracts were particularly interesting, if incomplete, since with the passage of time many of the books containing them had been damaged.
“For the past two months, we have been chasing the Creature from one kingdom to the other. Behind us we leave a trail of ruin, no matter how hard we try to limit the destruction. The Creature, or Shadow as some of our men call
it, attracts to it all that is unholy and undead and it is difficult to shield the innocent from our clashes. Our soldiers are weary but remain as determined as they were on the day we launched our campaign”.
“Today we were forced to kill men like us. The Creature attacked a village, using its dark magic to gain control over them. Almost one hundred men attacked at once and, although they were no threat to our army, this whole affair has negatively affected our soldiers”.
“We are coming under attack by men with increasing frequency. Our soldiers have come to name them Draculs, a word drawn from the dialect spoken in these parts of the world, meaning devils. I have spoken to the other leaders, only Naram-Sin and the Guardian seem to be worried; needlessly, I might add. We have been dispatching them with ease and finally our soldiers see them as something different, vile, and no longer human”.
“Today we are marking the passing of the twelfth month since we left our homes behind. An entire year spent away from our loved ones, doing battle in places unknown. At least the White Mountain is now visible in the horizon. Damned scribes… white mountain indeed… as if all those other mountains we have left behind us weren’t white”.
“I am placing this record of my memories within this cave. Outside, the screams of our men manage to drown out even the howling of this accursed snowstorm, which has been refusing to let up since we began scaling this damned mountain. The creatures won’t stop attacking. Finally, we have managed to find their lair. We are preparing for our final assault; we shall attempt to reach the mountaintop. I do not know if I will live to see another dawn, so let these texts serve as a monument to my life”.
These passages had been placed together; they appeared to have been written by the same author and Lucas had added some annotations: “Other leaders? An Ancient one?” Erica went on opening the various files, reading their contents, until she came across a file named “Archytas”. She tried to open it, but the file was locked.
“Archytas…” she murmured.
The name sounded vaguely familiar… Suddenly, she felt like a door within her mind had opened; memories of Naram-Sin came rushing in, the one after the other. She saw the Ancient before he was turned into a vampire, speaking to a man with milky skin and deformed characteristics. They were inside his tent, looking together at some maps on a hastily prepared table. They were deep in conversation, discussing their next moves in preparation for something they referred to as “the grand campaign”. The scene in Erica’s mind changed and she saw the two men, along with a great army, climbing a mountain. The next memory which came to her was from the top of the mountain she had seen before:
They had made it, they had defeated the creatures, but their own losses were anything but light. Almost all the way to the top of the White Mountain had been strewn with the bodies of the men who had sacrificed their lives to the cause. Their blood had drenched the snow covering the mountain which, from a distance, appeared as if it were bleeding. In front of them there was a lake, the most bizarre one they had seen in their lives. The water resembled molten silver, reflecting the sunlight like a mirror. Despite the altitude, its surface was calm, not a single ripple crossed it. The extreme weather that had battered them during their ascent to the mountaintop had completely ceased, as if they were standing inside the eye of a cyclone. None of the unhallowed creatures that had attacked them would approach this place. One of the soldiers walked to the water, despite the order to the contrary they had been issued with, and, before Erica had the chance to shout at him to stop, as if enchanted the man reached out and touched the surface of the lake. The man was unable to muster even a scream; his body aged within fractions of a moment, as if a hundred years had passed over it. The armor he was wearing rusted and disintegrated. Soon, all that was left of the hapless man were his bones, but these, too, turned to dust within a few moments. One of the army leaders, clearly upset, roared some orders. The few remaining men quickly formed ranks behind the ten leaders and none of them dared approach again that lake.
Erica was standing next to Archytas, who was holding in his hands an odd mechanical device, comprising nine orbs, resembling the planets of this solar system in orbit and, at its center, in the place of the sun, there was a rough ruby. The orbs were held in position by golden rods, engraved with runes, which allowed the planets to rotate around the gem at the center. Archytas adjusted the position of the orbs and then approached a large, strange stone which was close to the edge of the lake. Erica followed him and noticed that the upper side of this peculiar stone was similarly engraved. She saw the man place the device on those engravings; it fitted perfectly. With his one hand, he held the gem and turned it 360 degrees around, thus moving the planets. With a muffled sound, a platform emerged from the bottom of the lake, made of granite, which appeared to lead to the center of the lake. It was wide enough to allow three men to walk abreast on it. Archytas gestured to the other leaders to follow him and, leaving the rest of their men behind, began walking towards the center of the lake, taking with them a fairly large sack, so heave that two men had to carry it. The soldiers, who stayed behind, watched them walk away, until they disappeared in the distance.
The walk along the platform seemed without end, although the lake had looked fairly small. They felt like they had been walking for hours. The sun above and the silver waters below made it hard for them to see clearly, but they could not let nightfall catch them there. They all had the nagging sense that the lake would stop being this calm during the night. Suddenly, as they stumbled, half-blinded, the platform came to an end. Before them stretched the waters of the lake, defying gravity, flowing drop by drop towards the sky. Archytas reached out to touch that place and the flow of the water appeared to stop. For a few seconds, everything was still, until, with a thundering roar a massive whirlpool formed before their eyes. Archytas glanced at Erica, smiled and without the slightest hesitation jumped in. Taking a deep breath and closing her eyes, Erica followed him.
She felt the whirlpool sucking down her body, sending it into an endless spin at neck-breaking speed which made her stomach churn painfully. She kept her eyes closed, waiting for this torture to end. That moment came soon enough. Within mere seconds since she had jumped in the lake, she felt herself standing once more on solid ground. She opened her eyes and looked around her in awe and terror. She was in the Shadow Kingdom, the place where the Creature they had been seeking resided, as Archytas had told them. The silver lake extended directly over them, serving as the portal between their world and that of the shadows. She was standing at the center of a massive crater nestled within the heart of the mountain, as if a meteorite had crashed into this place in the past, bypassing the rest of the mountain. The silver waters of the lake, floating above them, not a single drop falling down, sealed the portal separating them from the outside world. The weak light that managed to seep in fell on the crater, covering it in a pale gray veil, allowing them to see in there. Houses stood on the inner side of the crater, black as black can be, as if they had been constructed entirely of granite. They did not appear bound by some common architectural thread or theme; like mushrooms they had sprang on every available surface and some of them extended up high, almost touching the lake. Some had their windows open, others stood with their doors ajar, but within all of them humanoid shadows could be seen, with fiery red eyes, shining in the darkness, all trained on them. Erica made to draw her sword, but Archytas placed his palm on it, stopping her. Then he turned and looked at the other eight men, gesturing to them as well not to draw their weapons.
“They will not harm us”, he assured them.
“Remind me exactly what makes you this certain”, Cheops grudgingly commented, one of the leaders accompanying them and, without waiting for some response from Archytas, he drew his sword.
The creatures reacted immediately; they charged them, a veritable sea of humanoid shadows, red-eyed and sharp-toothed.
He was feeling lost, entirely outside his depth. Marcos had never been to Ameri
ca before, but this was not the reason he was feeling stressed. His crazy plan was what bothered him. He recalled the moments before his departure from Greece, when he had asked to be given a year’s unpaid leave, “to overcome the loss of his friend”, as he had told his captain and later, when he was leaving his flat behind, the fear that had gripped his heart, the premonition that he wasn’t coming back. The long flight had been erased from memory, even though he hadn’t slept a wink; all through those long hours, his eyes were staring at the empty space, vaguely trained towards the window next to his seat. He had been thinking about the events of that last year: his slain friend, the ensuing battle with his killer, the wounds he had received from the Dead one; mostly, however, he had been thinking of Erica. He had been unable to cast her memory aside. For the umpteenth time, he wondered exactly why he had followed her. He tried to come up with a plausible explanation, struggling to convince himself that he merely had wanted to learn more about the death of his friend or that he had been hoping to save a young woman, Lucas’ sister. And yet, he was unable to add conviction to his excuses. The truth was that, from the moment he first saw her, he had felt something stirring inside of him, as if he had awakened from a deep slumber.
The sun set and he was still reminiscing in his hotel room, which was located at a fairly good area of the city, although not particularly close to the various landmarks. On the nightstand there were various tourist brochures stacked, describing the city landmarks, its history as well as some of its more famous streets. Distractedly, Marcos picked one up and leafed through it. Volt City offered the whole package: on the one side, it was bordering the Pacific Ocean, while on the opposite side stood a fairly big mountain, ideal for hiking, despite the relative lack of vegetation. The city center was famed, considered to be a temple dedicated to modern technology. Volt City had been founded in the early twentieth century as an experiment, with the purpose of serving as a hub for studying alternative energy sources and their sustainability. Although initially the city was reliant on coal and lignite for its energy, the American government, mindful of the experiments taking place in other countries, invested significant resources to research. Having lost the race for the construction of the first jet engine, the government bribed the Italian scientists who were on the verge of constructing a geothermal electrical plant and thus the first such plant was constructed in the United States. The famed scientist Nicolas Tesla, unable to return to Europe due to the savage war which had been raging there, settled in this city and soon the American government had included him officially in its payroll. All over the city Tesla mounted experimental manned laser guns, fearing an attack by the Japanese, and for many years he worked on various projects and patents. In a lasting testament to the legacy of the brilliant scientist, the lights at the city center, even in modern times, run on wireless electricity. Most buildings, including Tesla’s laboratory, had been turned by now into museums. Along with numerous scientists and their various inventions, the city centered had played host to the first nuclear bunker in America; the first of many.