“That’s why you wear all those rings,” Devona said. “They augment your natural magical abilities.”
“Very good,” Yberio gave Devona an appraising look. “You’re half vampire, right? Perhaps you have a bit of Arcane blood in you on your human side. But you’re correct. My rings help me absorb, store, and channel the mystic energy, all of which I can no longer do on my own. In human terms, it’s the equivalent of replacing a lost limb with a prosthesis or using a wheelchair if one can no longer walk.”
I saw Devona give me a quick glance. She understood what I was trying to do, and she looked back to Yberio and tried to keep him talking.
“I bet Talaith wasn’t happy about that,” she said,” considering how she feels about technology.”
“My rings aren’t technology in the strictest sense, but you’re right. Talaith considered them to be the same thing. At the very least, she thought them…unnatural.” Yberio let out a dark, bitter laugh. “As if there could be anything more unnatural than the likes of us! But she was angry with me for talking her into creating the Overmind, and she blamed me for the injuries that resulted in her loss of power. Darklords aren’t known for their forgiving nature, but one thing they can never forgive is anyone who causes them to lose strength or, even worse, face.”
I stretched my fingers toward the broken beaker. I was almost there. Just another inch…
Yberio continued his one-man pity party. “Talaith felt that I had made her a laughing stock in the eyes of her fellow Lords.” He sneered. “As if that mattered. Arrogant fools, every one of them. They think they’re better than we Demilords, simply because Dis chose them to help create Nekropolis. But did you know that Dis spent an entire year traveling the length and breadth of Earth, searching for the most powerful Darkfolk to help him turn his dream of Nekropolis into reality? And once he found them, he tested them in combat to determine just how strong they were. I was one of the Arcane Dis tested during the Wanderyear, and I acquitted myself admirably. I might well have been chosen to be a Darklord instead of Talaith-and I should’ve been! Dis might fancy himself a god, but in the end he’s just another damned monster like the rest of us. He’s not perfect; he’s fully capable of making errors of judgment.”
A half-inch now…
“But Dis didn’t choose you, he chose Talaith,” Devona said. “And Talaith banished you for failing her and turning to artificial means of enhancing your power, didn’t she?”
From the face Yberio made, you’d have thought he was having trouble swallowing a crap-covered turdball rolled in shit sprinkles. “Yes-and that’s when I realized I’d been a fool standing by her side all those centuries, helping her fight for one meaningless cause or another, all so she could increase her own power. First in the Blood Wars, and then in her endless pissing contests with the other so-called Lords. When I left Woodhome, I decided that from then on, I was going to work to increase my power and no one else’s!”
The tips of my fingers brushed the beaker’s glass surface. I thought I felt something snap in my shoulder, as if a tendon had torn loose, but it didn’t matter. All that mattered was getting my hand on that beaker.
“But power costs money,” Devona said. “You needed a way to make darkgems, so you began freelancing for the Dominari, helping them make new drugs like veinburn.”
Yberio gave her a smug little smile. “Well. I do still retain my knowledge of magic, you know.”
At last, I managed to wrap my fingers around the beaker.
“Tell me something, Yberio,” I said. “Do you still know how to catch?”
Before he could react, I hurled the beaker toward him. As I’d hoped, he wasn’t prepared for the attack and the half-broken glass container sailed through his silver energy aura without resistance. I got lucky and the jagged edge of the beaker hit him in the face, and the greenish-yellow liquid inside sloshed into his eyes. Yberio screamed and staggered backward, and as his concentration shattered, the silver hands holding Devona and I down vanished, along with the energy aura surrounding him. Crimson blood mixed with yellow-green chemicals as Yberio desperately wiped at his eyes, trying to clear them.
I sat up, intending to rise to my feet and confront the warlock who had killed my partner, but before I could stand, Devona leapt to her feet and closed on Yberio with the savage speed and grace of a jungle cat. She grabbed hold his shoulder with one hand, grabbed the top of his bald scalp with the other, and yanked his head to the side. Then she bared her fangs with a snarl and plunged her teeth into the warlock’s exposed neck. Yberio shrieked as Devona tore out a chuck of his flesh and blood gushed from the wound.
Devona stepped back, her mouth and chest covered with the warlock’s blood. She spat out the hunk of meat she’d bitten off and it hit the floor with a wet plap. Now Yberio pressed his hand to his throat, trying to keep his lifeblood from spilling out.
“A few hours ago, I was joined to Matt soul-to-soul,” Devona said. “I experienced his thoughts, his emotions…and his memories. I know what you did to his partner, and more, I know what that loss did to him. You should’ve died the day the Overmind was destroyed, you bastard. But you didn’t, and so I’m glad to finish the job. For Matt.” She paused. “For my love.”
I was so overwhelmed by what Devona had done-and even more by what she’d just said-that for a moment all I could do was sit there gaping like an undead moron. Her fangs were distended, her eyes were wild, and her mouth was smeared with gore…and I’d never seen any woman more beautiful.
But then Yberio’s free arm flared with silver energy and he backhanded Devona, sending her sailing through the air to collide with the far wall. She bounced off and fell onto her side, moaning.
Silver power flickered to life around the hand Yberio held pressed to his neck wound, and I knew he was attempting to heal it. I slowly rose to my feet and started toward him.
“You know, Richter, as long as you and your little bloodcunt didn’t find out about this lab, I was going to leave you alone. Sure, your destruction of the Overmind ruined my life, but I like to think I’ve risen above such petty things as revenge. If you don’t stand in the way of my acquisition of power, why should I bother with you? But things have gone way too far now, and I’m-”
By this time I’d reached Yberio. I calmly took his head in my heads and gave it a single vicious twist. There was a loud crack, Yberio’s eyes went wide, and his silver aura winked out. When I released his head, his dead body slumped to the floor. “You shouldn’t have called her that,” I whispered. Then I turned and went over to see how Devona was.
She managed to rise to a kneeling position, and I took her hand and helped her to stand.
“You all right?”
She drew the back of her hand across her mouth to wipe away Yberio’s blood. “I’ve been better, but I think I’ll live.”
I intended to take her into my arms and give her the hug of her life, when I saw Skully standing in the doorway, axe held at his side. I searched for pinpricks of anger in his sockets and found none. He looked down at Yberio’s dead body, his boneface expressionless as always.
“I never did like that dick,” he said.
“I’ve known you ever since I first came to Nekropolis, Skully. Hell, I was still alive when we met. I knew you worked for the Dominari, but I never figured you’d associate with a scumbag like that .” I gestured toward Yberio’s corpse.
“I had my orders.” Skully said. “And given who my bosses are, it’s a good idea to do what they want, regardless of what I might think about it.”