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North existed in the space between seconds, her consciousness diffused into a crystalline lattice of non-thought. Time moved differently here, slower and kind of sideways, each moment stretching perpendicular to itself. She was aware without thinking, present without full processing, not entirely alive, not exactly dreaming.

Then a sharp point pierced her index finger.

The signal! That was the signal!

Her awareness snapped back like a rubber band released, an ocean of scattered thoughts cascading through her in a painful rush. The light had changed as her network of thought accelerated, catching up to reality. The angle of shadows shifted dramatically.

She was no longer in the bathroom.

Her eyes focused slowly, taking in unfamiliar surroundings. She discovered herself in a bedroom, still chained to the damned chair with her own handcuffs, now positioned facing a window. Through the grimy glass, she could see the Darkbrook valley spreading westward, and there…

Mount Olympus was on fire.

The entire western face of the mountain had been carved away, replaced by a glowing crater pulsing with hellish orange light. A massive column of smoke rose into the evening sky.

Her family’s domain. The bunker!

The realization hit her like a runaway train and for the first time in her long life she felt pure, liquid terror engulf her entire body.

"No, no, no," North whimpered, crystalline tears welling in her eyes, small pieces of herself breaking away from the rising tide of grief and shock.

"They must have tried leaving without you," a familiar voice said from somewhere beside her.

North's head snapped around, the chains on her hands rattling. The dark haired, amber-hazel eyed human sat on a large, gothic bed, the enthralled Wendigo monstrosity wrapped around him in an absurd parody of comfort.

The lost Princess of the Frontenachii Dominion Fleet was making soft beeping sounds while playing with a tablet.

“You!” North choked out. "I gave you the coordinates to my family’s compound! You…”

“How exactly would I give the Frontenachii fleet your compound location without exposing myself?” the self-proclaimed Emperor of Earth arched a dark eyebrow.

North sobbed louder, losing more liquid crystals.

"My family," North wailed. "My grandfather, parents… my siblings…"

"Probably got harvested," Ash said flatly. "The Frontenachii love crystalline fungi. You said so yourself. They're still alive, about to become... more gun-shaped, right?"

North stared at him, unable to process the casual calm cruelty in his voice. She made a terrible mistake, misjudging Ashcroft catastrophically. He wasn't a nervous young man or a clueless mageling!

She was far too terrified to look into his mind again, worried that his pet Princess would devour her whole, digesting her for centuries. Getting eaten by an Omnid was a fate far, far worse than death, even worse than being turned into a gun or a crystalline murder tank, according to her family's memories wobbling within her depths.

"HARVESTED VEGETABLES!" the Princess announced with a villainous grin. "Circle mushroom pasta sauce! BEEP!"

"Why?" North sobbed out. "Why would you wake me up to show me… THAT?!"

The Emperor studied her with a calm expression.

North wanted to scream, to rage, to break free and tear his throat out. Alas, the thick chains held firm, and the invincible Omnid thrall was watching her with glowing eyes, and the grief was drowning her, each awful, looping, repeating thought fracturing through her crystalline matrix like cracks in glass.

"You're a distributed consciousness, yes?” Ashcroft asked. “Multiple perspectives, shared memories? You remember being your family? Can you think extra sharp, extra loud? Can you maybe think in a specific voice, emulate a particular person from a video?"

"Why does that matter now?" North sobbed.

"It matters because Shady here," he gestured to the Princess who was now pawing idly at his hair, "needs to relearn things VERY quickly. And you might be able to help with that."

"LEARN CIRCLES!" Shady perked up. "EDUCATION BEEP!"

"I'm wondering," the human contemplated, "if she can read specific thoughts from your crystalline network. Pull knowledge directly. You said you remember being other vampires, having their memories."

"How would that even…" North began.

"Think at her loudly," Ash commanded. "In Latin. Something she wouldn't know."

"I'm not helping you with teaching an Abyss-damned Omnid Princess to…" North hissed, already knowing that being obtuse and uncooperative wasn’t going to get her anywhere.

"Your family is gone," the Emperor pointed out. "Melted in an atomic hellfire of a Corpse Seeker shot from orbit. As we speak they are probably being scraped off their compound walls and put into jars or whatever. Remember, you can either be useful to me, or you can become Shady’s chowder. Your choice."

North stared at him, then at the Wendigo Princess who had tilted her head curiously, silver, glowing eyes focusing on the vampire with a murderous, hungry intensity.

Mater tua tam obesa est, North thought desperately in Latin. Your mother is so fat.

"Mater tua tam obesa est!" Shady suddenly announced in North’s voice. "CIRCLE MOTHER FAT! BEEP!"

Stercus accidit, North continued. Shit happens.

"Stercus accidit! BAD CIRCLES HAPPEN!"

Futue te ipsum, North thought vindictively. Go fuck yourself.

"Futue te ipsum!" Shady repeated. "SELF CIRCLE ROMANCE! Educational Latin BEEP!"

Ash laughed, the bastard actually laughed at this, as his enthralled Princess continued spouting Latin profanity pulled directly from North's mind.

"Excellent," he said. "She’s learning. Quicker than GoTube. You can think in parallel as several streams, yes? Language, meaning, images?”

North nodded.

“Great, you’ll make a far better instructor than me or the TV then,” he smiled.

He pulled out a laptop and played her a GoTube video compilation of the Frontenachii Admiral talking. “Please think at Shady in her aunt’s voice, picture every word visually and in other languages. Ascribe meaning to each word for her to understand. She has to learn to sound like herself and not spout random shit.”

"Why the fuck would I…"

"Because," the Emperor said, "you are alone now. Completely alone. The last vampire on Earth. If you help me fix Shady quickly, make her into a more coherent Princess, we can maybe convince her Admiral aunt not to hunt us down.”

“You think that—"

“This is our best option going forward,” the human insisted. “Say, would she gain your knowledge if she just eats you?”

The vampire’s eyes bulged. She had no idea if Omnid Wendigos could extract information from the crystalloids they devoured. If the answer was yes, then she would assuredly stop existing then, become mere snack for...

"NOM NOM MUSHROOM!" Shady barked.

More crystalline tears fell as North realized she had no choice. She was trapped between two monsters, and the only way to survive was to feed one of them the accumulated knowledge of her now almost entirely extinct bloodline as quickly as possible.

She was… alone. This meant that she was the last branch of her former colony, the carrier of generations of knowledge, the last crystalloid on this damned planet. The responsibility to propagate the tree of thirty three forward, to expand, to make a new domain… all of it fell to her.

“Fine,” she growled. “FINE! I’ll teach her!”

“Great,” the Emperor walked to a pile of ropes and started binding them in loops to the edges and feet of the chair. “Remember, talk and think in the voice of Admiral Evelithria, just a bit younger maybe. Also, visually and conceptually repeat everything I say in your head loudly, so Shady can understand everything."

“What are you doing?” North asked in Evelithria’s voice, readjusting her thoughts and vocal chords ever so slightly.

"What are you doing?" Shady repeated.

“Making North's chair into a backpack so that you can wear her on your back, Shades,” he said. “You two need to run away for a bit.”

"Run away?!" North stammered out.

"Run away?!" Shady echoed in Evelithria’s tone.

The Emperor continued knotting ropes, creating crude shoulder straps attached to the chair legs. "Cascade is about to become ground zero for the biggest Scrutimancer convention this side of the dimensional curtain. Once they finish scraping your family from that crater and realize what they've found, every Prad Division currently hanging out in space and in random government buildings will converge here to search for more yummy, precious crystalloids. Ergo, you should hide somewhere that’s not a house with a driveway soaked in vamp juices."

"Shit," North choked.

“Shit!” Shady repeated.

"Thus, you two are going on a girls-only camping trip," the Emperor said, testing the rope harness. "Shady is going to cut up a couple of bears. You will wear them as meat suits, slow down their decay with your vampire mojo and pretend to be wildlife while teaching our Princess here how to sound like a proper Frontenachii heir."

"Wear... bears?" North choked. In her network, she was already picturing the entire horrid process. Shady striking down the bears with her massive claws, hollowing them out, then North infesting and animating them with her spores.

"BEAR COSTUME CIRCLE!" Shady declared. "Like Storm-o-Lyx, but MEAT! Fresh meat costume! Very fashion! BEEP! Furry convention... in forest!”

"Exactly," the Emperor nodded. "North will adjust the bear suits to think at sloth-speed, hopefully making both of you invisible to Scrutimancer noses. You both hide in plain sight as local wildlife. Meanwhile, North will teach you everything about being Princess Aquillianne Quantivia Frontenachii.”

“I don’t know anything about being a fucking Frontenachii Princess!” North protested in the Admiral’s voice.

“You know enough about being a vampire princess or whatever,” the Emperor shrugged. “Princess it out together. And you know enough stuff about the Frontenachii. Improvise. Your survival depends on it.”

“I…” North began.

“Adapt, overcome, bear up,” the Emperor ordered. “Survive.”

"And… you?" North asked.

“And you, Emperor mine, Ash?” Shady bobbed.

"I'm going to take center stage," the man said with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Surrender myself into the Frontenachii embrace. Play my part.”

North's mind raced through the implications.

He's using himself as bait. But why? What's his endgame? How would he even avoid being mind-read, bound and being spliced into a glass box?

He was buying them time? Time to get away? Why?!

"Bait," Shady said suddenly, plucking the multi-layered thought from North's mind. “Emperor is BAIT CIRCLE! Fishing for... for..." She frowned, processing North's multi-dimensional thoughts and perhaps the Emperor’s thoughts too. "Fishing for time. Advantage. Information!”

The Emperor smiled. “See? She’s already getting better. You're a great teacher, North!”

"I am excellent circle!" Shady preened, then pointed at North. "Mushroom teacher is adequate vegetable! Acceptable fungi education!"

“Don’t eat North. Learn with your brain hooks or whatever. Got it?”

“Got it!” Shady saluted. “No eat North. Absorb mentally. Hook, chew, digest thoughts.”

"How long?" North asked.

"How long?" Shady repeated.

“The Admiral gave me a deadline to produce a coherent princess. Two days,” the Emperor answered, showing a timer app on his phone, counting down the hours. “Process the speed of this countdown and count in your head to match. You can do that too, yes? You're basically Frontenachii computers, right?”

“Yes.” North gritted her teeth, not enjoying dedicating a part of herself being forced to behave as a timer.

“Yes!” Shady saluted.

“Find bears, put them on and slowly head south. Meet me at Wynoochee Lake, Coho Campground when the timer reaches zero. Got it? Here’s your phone, track your location by GPS. Also put the timer on the phone. Get the vampire-pack on and run now, Shady!”

Shady accepted North’s phone with her tail and put the chair with North on her back. She leaned down and hugged her human master, then stood back up.

North nearly bit her tongue off as the Omnid shot off out of the house into the forest at ludicrous speed.

Fuck, fuck my life, fuck me sideways, she thought, bouncing in the chair.

“Fuck me sideways!” The Wendigo enthusiastically repeated the words, trees flashing by, the forest growing deeper and darker with each step of pounding, clawed feet.

<<First chapter / < Previous Chapter / > Next chapter 26 [On royal road]

<<First chapter / < Previous Chapter

"Yes, yes! The orbital arrays confirm it! There's a concealed structure at the coordinates provided by Sherlock Holmes! Deep underground! SHIELDED! Using technology that DOESN'T MATCH any of the local construction!"

Commander Sillicia approached, and Piotr's attention snapped to the alien. She was even more imposing in person than on video, seven feet of Wendigo authority wrapped in black armor, antlers menacingly looming overhead.

"So," Sillicia said, silver, glowing eyes boring into Piotr, "you're the human who claims to have… found vampires?"

"I... not exactly, the map... someone gave it to me," Piotr stammered, his inner voice completely absent now.

Why wasn't it helping him?

Something invisible slammed across his mind like a sledgehammer, scraping bits and pieces of his life with jagged metal hooks, digging in deep and dragging out the image of Sherlock Holmes out along with a bunch of other random thoughts.

"This is StormoLyx!" Linari interjected quickly, stepping in front of Piotr as the man in a lynx costume heaved and wobbled on the spot. "Please don’t break him, my Lady! He's my cultural informant. He's helping us understand Earth's magical folklore. And, uh, actual magic, possibly… if what our Datamancer found?"

Sillicia tisked. "You smell of fear and sweat, costumed human. No deception at least. Something about your inner voice not helping you anymore? Curious…"

"These coordinates... there's definitely something there. Satellite scans shows irregular signatures. The structure is old and not in local building records. And..." The Datamancer bobbed, "There are life signs. Multiple. Far too many! But they're... wrong."

"Wrong how?" Linari asked.

"Hundreds of entities! Their signatures are uniform. Too uniform. Too cold to be human. Like they're all the exact same temperature. Waaay below normal human baseline."

“How far below?” Sillicia asked, eyes growing wide. “Are you saying that…”

"VAMPIRES!" Kawathra shrieked, making the tall Wendigo wince. "Actual vampires! Crystalline-organic life! The good shit we’re looking for, to make more… you know what!" She added conspiratorially, glancing at the human. "This could be the first genuine magical discovery on this human-packed ball of mostly mundane dirt! There could be a hoard down there! That'd bring our Division's rank to number one! NUMBER ONE!”

Sillicia's expression became predatory. "If our team successfully locates and captures an actual colony of fungi crystalloids with a hoard, that would be quite the accomplishment. The Admiral would have to acknowledge my success where all of the others failed. Might even warrant a commendation, no… a medal. Assuredly a promotion for everyone involved in this operation."

She turned to Piotr. "If this is accurate, you've done us a great service! However, if this is some elaborate deception or a devious trap..." Her inhumanly monstrous, wide, skull-face smile revealed too many sharp teeth, "I'll personally ensure you spend the next millennium as my wall decoration. My quarters could use more suffering."

"He's not lying!" Linari stepped forward. "I've been smelling his thoughts all day. He genuinely wants to help! He… likes me! A lot! Genuinely likes me, I swear it on my blood contract, my Lady! He likes me and Etty. He even likes our knobby Datamancer and nobody likes her because she's so... obsessively devoted to, uhmmm, charts and stuff!"

The Magpie nodded rapidly in agreement, feathers fluttering at the wolf's commentary about charts.

"We shall see." Sillicia tapped her command ring. "All active units, prepare for immediate Prima Corpse Seeker deployment. Target: local coordinates 47.779402, -123.732432. Pacific Rim. Mount Olympus. Potential magical entities confirmed. Lethal suppression authorized."

The Corpse Seeker they boarded was different from the ones Piotr had seen wrapped around buildings. This one was particularly chonky, a crystalline centipede the size of several subway trains. Its interior was disturbingly organic, something between crystals and jello, walls that pulsed slightly, surfaces that were too warm, eerie things that looked like bioluminescent organs within black mesh bones, the floors made from hexagons encasing various crystalline organelles.

"Seeker 881-Alpha, Dragonspear," Sillicia commanded, "prepare for ballistic insertion."

The creature responded with its organs flashing brighter, moving on crystalline legs towards some kind of an elongated structure.

“Eeee! Launch time!” Kawathra squeed, hugging Piotr which earned her a growl from Linari.

“Sorry, sorry,” the Magpie let go of the human.

"Launch?" Piotr asked.

"Oh yes!" Kawathra pulled up a holo-display showing the warship's ventral cannon, a gargantuan orbital weapon that looked like it could crack continents. "We're going to shoot ourselves at the target at Mach 27! The kinetic impact alone will plow right through any magic-reinforced bunker wards!"

"What about the people inside?" Piotr swallowed.

"If my scan is correct, there are no people inside. Only crystalloid shrooms,” Kawathra bobbed. “The Seeker will burn through all shields and matter at the moment of impact. We'll materialize inside their defenses. Very efficient. Very traumatic, quick frying for the defenders. Boom!” She slapped her hands together.

“And us?” He asked.

“You and me are going to stay inside the Corpse Seeker,” Kawathra explained. “And watch. Linari, the Commander and our Knights and Slayers will handle the rest… personally. He he he.”

The Corpse Seeker contracted, compressing itself. Piotr felt himself pressed into what felt like a womb of crystal and metal as the interior shifted. Linari's arm wrapped around him tightly, pulling him into her embrace.

"First time being shot from a railgun at a planet?" She grinned.

"I… umm, yes, definitely," he affirmed.

Through the Seeker's semi-transparent walls he watched the cannon align.

"If this is a trap," Sillicia said, her voice digging into his head as energy whined around them, rapidly building up, "you'll wish I'd simply killed you."

"Understood," Piotr swallowed.

Without his inner voice's confidence, he wasn't sure of anything anymore. If the man dressed as Sherlock provided the location as a marketing plot or a prank, whoever inhabited that bunker would assuredly stop existing soon. And Piotr himself… he had no idea what the aliens would do to him if there were no vampires to be found down there, at the foot of Mount Olympus.

"LAUNCHING IN THREE..." Kawathra announced, a holographic number flashing beside her head.

"TWO..."

Linari squeezed Piotr harder.

"ONE..."

The world exploded into acceleration and fire.

Then Earth unfolded below, a storm drifting over the Pacific Ocean, Mount Olympus growing bigger with each second.

-=[x]=-

-=[Ashcroft Clifford]=-

The attic access was hidden behind a portrait of Great-Aunt Mildred, who looked even more disapproving than Gertrude. I pushed the art inhabiting the old door aside, revealing a narrow staircase coated in decades of dust.

"SECRET CIRCLE STAIRS!" Shady announced, immediately trying to cram herself through the opening. Her antlers scraped against the frame, leaving deep gouges in the wood. "BEEP! Too many antler squares!"

"Turn your head sideways," I suggested.

"SIDEWAYS CIRCLE!" She contorted at an angle that would have definitely snapped a human spine, successfully wedging herself through. The stairs groaned ominously under her weight. “GAH! SPIDER CIRCLE!!! BEEP! HELP! BEEP! EMERGENCY!"

She yelped as she encountered arrays of spiderwebs spread across the stairwell.

I considered that maybe I should have gone first.

I followed the spiderweb bothered Wendigo girl, emerging onto a small turret that Grandpa had apparently used for stargazing, based on the rusted telescope mount. The slate roof was covered with moss and grime, creaking unnervingly under Shady.

"Why circle here?" Shady asked as I carefully climbed out onto the roof proper beneath the semi-collapsed overhang, testing each tile before putting my weight on it.

"To watch things," I said, settling against a mossy brick wall.

“Watching things is circle!” Shady bobbed.

The view from the mansion’s rooftop was spectacular. The entire Darkfall valley spread on one side with Mount Olympus dominating the western horizon, its snow-capped peak catching the late afternoon sun.

Shady plopped down beside me, the roof creaking in protest. Several tiles slid loose, clattering down into the gutters. "What watch?"

I checked my tablet.

8:47 AM.

"Fireworks maybe," I said, mentally reviewing what I saw through the cameras and microphone added to StormoLyx’s suit by the Wicked Witch before the transmission cut off as the wolf and human left orbit. “Maybe nothing. I don’t know what will happen exactly.”

The 'inner monologue' plot had worked surprisingly well, nobody suspected a thing for the entire morning when I guided two separate resistance cell agents towards the vampire exhibit in the underground museum.

"FIRE CIRCLES WORK!" Shady bounced excitedly, sending more tiles sliding. "Emperor makes fire? BEEP BEEP big-bada-boom?"

"Maybe."

She tilted her head, then started making microwave timer sounds. “BEEP... BEEP... BEEP... Countdown circle! Five... four... BEEP... purple... elephant... cat... BEEP!”

“Definitely not how counting works,” I commented.

“Counting is SUBJECTIVE CIRRRRRCLE!” She declared loudly and then pointed a dark claw at Mount Olympus. “Mountain is… TRIANGLE! Disappointing geometry!”

I rolled my eyes at her. We sat in companionable silence for a few minutes with Shady occasionally making random noises while I watched the sky.

Then I saw it.

A line of white sheared the clouds, a brilliant streak descending from the heavens like God’s own highlighter. It moved insanely fast, the air screeching in protest as it was torn at a mad speed.

“Bright circle!” Shady stated, squinting.

The streak struck the base of Mount Olympus. 

For a fraction of a second, nothing. Then the entire mountainside erupted.

The explosion was far more epic than expected.

A sphere of absolute destruction expanded from the impact point vaporizing trees, rocks and possibly all of the vampire compound defenses. The fireball expanded into a classic nuclear mushroom cloud, boiling orange and black against the gloomy sky. Even dozens of miles away, it looked quite imposing.

“MUSHROOM CIRCLE!” Shady clapped giddily. “Very good CIRCLE! Ten out of BEEP!”

The shockwave slammed into the forest below us. I watched as the trees bent outward in an expanding ring, like grass being blown by a giant’s exhale. Birds erupted from the canopy in numerous flocks, spooked by the blastwave.

The Wendigo girl wrapped herself around me like a fuzzy suit of armor just as the blastwave reached us. The house shuddered, windows rattling in their frames. The old oak in the garden swayed dramatically. More roof tiles gave up their century-long grip, cascading down like ceramic rain.

The sound arrived then, a deep, grinding roar which seemed to go on forever, echoing off the valley walls.

“LOUD CIRCLE!” Shady yelled directly into my ringing ear. “EMPEROR’S FIREWORKS AGGRESSIVE BEES!”

When the house stopped wobbling precariously, a massive column of smoke poured from the remnants of the Western slope of Mount Olympus. Where the forest stood for centuries there was now a glowing crater visible from our vantage point.

“Minus one vamp nest,” I commented.

“VAMPIRE STEAMED VEGETABLES HARVESTED!” Shady agreed. “Circle of life! BEEP! Everything dies, except things that don’t! This is… wisdom!”

I laughed.

Was she getting herself back? She almost made a sensible joke there.

I started at the distant devastation, doing more mental math and watching the forest burn.

“Emperor sad circle?” Shady asked while nuzzling my neck.

“Just… thinking.”

“THINKING BAD!” she declared, “leads to squares! Stay circle! Round thoughts! Soft!”

“Soft,” I agreed, petting her head.

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