The Last of the Red-Hot Vampires

The windows in the ballroom shattered inward with a noise that sounded as if it came from the depths of Abaddon itself. Milo screamed as I directed the tornado on top of him. I ran forward as the Hashmallim reached me, eluding their grasp just as I eluded Theo's.

"I won't allow this!" Theo bellowed at me, lunging forward.

"I can't allow anything other than this," I answered and, for a moment, our being was one. It was a moment of the brightest love, the worst pain. I wanted it to go on forever.

Carol screamed, a high, wailing noise that was sucked up by the tornado, her body consumed by the vortex. Milo tried to get away, but it had him before he could do more than bellow my name. I directed it back toward me as the Hashmallim descended.

"I will always love you," I told Theo as the nearest Hashmallim grabbed me. I threw myself forward, into the screaming wind and cloth, the Hashmallim behind me jerking all of us, the whole twisting vortex, into the black abyss of nothing that was the Akasha.

Chapter 24

Time passed. I don't know how much because consciousness returned slowly to me, but when I regained my senses I was aware of the sound of a woman sobbing and a man screaming his fury at the top of his lungs.

I smiled even without opening my eyes. My plan had worked. I hadn't been sure if the Hashmallim would be able to extract me alone from the maelstrom of a powerful tornado, counting on the probability that they would just suck the whole mess out of the Court and into limbo. "Welcome to the Akasha," I said.

Strong hands jerked me off the ground, holding my neck in a vise of pain. Spots danced before my eyes as Milo's contorted face swam in and out of focus.

"You! You did this to us! You have destroyed everything!"

"Yes, I did. I'm just glad it worked," I croaked, kicking him in the groin at the same time I slammed the palm of my hand into his nose. There was a delightful crunching sound from his face that I fervently hoped was a bone breaking. Milo screamed again, dropping me to clutch his genitals, blood streaming down his face.

"It's over," I told the pathetic man rolling around on the ground. I spread my arms to indicate the rocky black landscape that spread out in an endless plain of misery. "And this is all you have to show for your evil plans. It's worth having to spend the rest of eternity here knowing that you're never going to step foot in the Court again."

Milo spat out some names for me that I felt were best ignored.

"I just have one question," I said, looking around. The Akasha looked the same as when I'd been here for the trial. Carol was draped over a nearby mound of earth, her sobs raw and painful on the ear. I strolled over to her, stopping just beyond her reach. "Why me? Why did you come to me when I inadvertently summoned you? Surely you hadn't been waiting around for me to do so?"

She looked up, her face blotched red and white with a combination of tears, agony, and fury. "Such arrogance! You think this was about you? You were nothing more than a convenient scapegoat, mortal. Long ago we had settled on Theo North as the means to demand a renascence—but when you thrust yourself in the way, we decided the two of you together would do just as well. You were both dispensable."

She spat with the last word. I jumped back, smiling at her. I'm sure she thought her words were cut ting, but I took immense pleasure in the fact that their wicked plans to use us had failed.

She collapsed in another wave of sobbing.

"Well, then." I wandered away, trying to get my bearings. Beyond the small raised area we inhabited, a faint path cut between the scrubby vegetation and boulders that littered the plain floor, a trail twisting through it to the plateau. The same cluster of rocks was in the center, the faint shapes of the Hashmallim visible in between sharp upthrusts of rock. "I guess it's time to get to know the neighbors. I trust you two will be fine on your own?"

"You'll never leave here either," Milo screamed at me, pulling himself onto his knees. "You'll never again see your Dark One. You have damned him to an eternity of hell, just as you have yourself."

"No," I said, touching my chest. "Theo is a part of me. He will always be here, inside me. Nothing can change that, not even banishment to the Akasha."

"Fool," Milo snarled, his face twisted with rage and hate. "He will forget you."

I shook my head as I started down the path. "You really should learn to have more faith. I've found it's worth the effort."

He raged after me, hurling invective, rocks, and bits of the scraggly black shrubs that dotted the landscape. I dodged all of them, feeling it preferable to spend the rest of my existence talking with the Hashmallim over indulging in Milo and Carol's company. The sooner I got used to them, the better for all of us.