Chapter 1
She had to win this war. All she had ever known was combat, victory and, since the emergence of the battle saints, escape after escape. She was their last hope, General of the last united army of vampires. And her plan – crazy as it had been – had worked. She had found a way to prolong her life. Battle saints were nearly immortal with their endless supply of Light. But now she had invented her own kind of immortality. Every worn-out body could be replaced by a new one.
Smugly, she looked at her hands, flexing and stretching her fingers. So far, she’d acted quickly. She had barely had time to try out her new body while getting out of the dungeon. So, she activated her powers, and they rushed through her veins like a joyful fire. Fabric tore as wings shot out of her back. Wings! Intact wings!
She took off with a mighty flap. The obscenely resplendent entrance hall in which she found herself offered plenty of space for twists and turns. Laughing, she hurtled over debris and the dead. She had taken over an intact human body and was in possession of all her senses and powers. Everything was as it should be; as it had been before the battle saint mutilated her. He would bitterly regret what he had done to her! All of humanity would bitterly regret it …
Sartiria flew around a ring of candlesticks hanging from the ceiling and landed light-footedly on the marbled floor. The odours surrounding her were very familiar – sweat, blood, urine. But now and again, notes arose that didn't quite fit in – floral soap, sweet smoke and alcohol. Her right arm was back, too, and obeyed her command. She retracted her wings, extended her claws and grabbed a uniformed dead soldier by the skull. Then she fuelled her powers until her right hand was aflame with power and squeezed. A grin spread across her face as the satisfying crack sounded.
Sartiria dropped the body and noticed a young vampire at the entrance, who observed her behaviour with an absent look. The extent of his powers was so small that she had forgotten his presence.
‘What are you standing there like a land post for?’ She grabbed a nearby pedestal surrounded by broken glass and heaved it in his direction.
He flinched and ducked. The plinth left a dent in the yellowish wall and crashed to the floor. ‘M-Mylady?’
‘Tell me where we are, soldier!’
‘I-in the castle of the Crimson Plains, Mylady.’ Hesitantly, he approached, climbing over a bloodied carcass.
‘How far are we from Schattenfels?’
He stopped a good distance away. His bulging eyes blinked nervously. ‘Schattenfels?’
‘The Schattenfels fortress in the mountains, where we had to retreat to temporarily. Surely, you have at least heard of it?’
‘I am sorry, Mylady. I have not.’
He was obviously a simple soldier who had only recently become a vampire. ‘What can you tell me about the men who just left us? You’ve addressed one as Mylord. Is that his name? Eldric Mylord?’
Sartiria almost regretted having sent him straight to the wounded. But something about the way he had looked at her irritated her. Well, she would get an explanation for all this from someone. The battle seemed to be over. She heard no screams, saw no Light, felt no demonic powers shooting up.
The soldier with his bulging eyes ventured a little closer. ‘You have become a vampiress, Mylady? How did you free yourself from the madness so quickly?’
‘Who were the two vampires with the child?’ She did not like repeating herself.
‘You don’t remember Lord Eldric and his brother, Sir Albert?’
She jumped forward and grabbed him by the collar. ‘Answer my question!’
He retracted his head. ‘Lord Eldric came to free his daughter. You must have rushed to his aid with Sir Albert.’
‘Why?’
‘Last night, Lady Berlinda helped Sir Morton escape. Lord Eldric had imprisoned him after taking over the title. They took Miss Annie with them to lure Lord Eldric into a trap and take revenge on him.’
What he was saying didn’t make the slightest bit of sense. It sounded like a confusing family feud – between vampires! She sensed the gathered demonic aura of an approaching group and let go of the useless worm. Above their heads, on a balcony, golden eyes appeared, watching them suspiciously. Voices hissed until one rose above the others.
‘Where are the guards?’
Others would probably have called the smooth fish of a woman gliding down one of the side stairs a beauty. Sartiria immediately found her unpleasant. No one who was honestly involved in the war smelled of rose petals. A man with a child by the hand quickly caught up with her. He brushed his shoulder-length dark hair out of his face and took a deep breath.
‘Guards! Over here!’
Only when the badly battered guards who had fled from Eldric – or Mylord or whatever his name was – rushed over and reluctantly lined up behind Sartiria did more figures venture down the steps towards them, all dressed in expensive robes.
The fishy woman stopped at the foot of the stairs. Her strength was clearly mediocre. ‘Who are we dealing with here? Where is my son?’
Sartiria surveyed the pitiful collection of vampires that had survived. Unfortunately, it looked like Eldric had successfully disposed of their most powerful fighters. They had been left with, firstly, those who didn't fight because they were too weak to do so – like the child, the limping old man and a few other vampires in white uniforms. Secondly, there were the cowards who probably fled at the first opportunity – like the cowering couple and the shivering little vampire at the very back. And last came those who possessed a fair amount of demonic strength but were clever enough to retreat in the face of inevitable defeat – the fishy woman and the dark-haired man who led the group, as well as a young man who lolled against the banister with his blond curls as if standing upright was too much of an effort.
The dark-haired man turned to the guards he had summoned and kept a wary eye on Sartiria. ‘Where is Lord Farkas?’
The guard shook his head in despair. ‘We don’t know, Sir Aleksander. Lord Eldric has escaped with his daughter.’
She had initially understood the terms as names. But Sir, Lady and Mylord, or just Lord, had to denote certain ranks in the local hierarchy. Perhaps she had come across an isolated group of vampires they hadn’t known about before. That would be good news for once. Had someone managed to infiltrate a rich human family?
‘Then go and find him,’ the woman next to Sir Aleksander hissed. The resemblance in their even features and the shared odour indicated a close kinship between the two. She fixated her gaze on Sartiria. ‘And you will pay for this unauthorised intrusion with your death!’
As the guards scattered, Sartiria growled impatiently. ‘Are you the crew of this facility? I am General Sartiria of the Last United Army. You probably know me by name unless you are completely cut off from the outside world. I have had to procure a new body because I was mutilated by a battle saint. I don’t know what happened here, but in times like these, us vampires need to stick together, and I need answers to some pressing questions. This soldier here didn’t have anything helpful to say.’
She took a long, diagonal stride towards the woman and Aleksander, revealing the frog-eyed man who had taken cover behind her. He scurried away like a woodlouse, hiding behind another pedestal that presumably hadn’t had a severed leg on display before the fight.
‘I was last in Schattenfels with my troops. Is the fortress still in our hands?’
The vampires of the castle stared at her as if she were speaking a foreign language. The fish of a woman exchanged a glance with Aleksander, who shrugged his shoulders. What collection of moronic vampires had she come across here? Was she even still on the Continent? Perhaps, one of their ships had made it to the new world after all. And she had – only the Primordial Demon knew why – ended up among the fugitives there. Or no one wanted to be the messenger of bad news.
‘Answer!’
She fuelled the fire inside her. The vampires reacted to this threatening gesture by moving closer together.
Aleksander leaned towards the woman watching her from narrow eyes and hissed out of the corner of his mouth. ‘She can’t be a normal stray. I’ve seen her in the Finsterwald’s retinue. I think that’s Eldric’s—’
Several shouting guards stumbled into the entrance hall.
‘Lady Marika! Sir Aleksander!’
‘The dungeon has collapsed!’
‘Lord Farkas – Sir Ned – dead!’
Horror tore through the smooth surface of the vampiress, Marika, and she stormed towards the entrance to the tunnel. Only the blond youth followed her. Aleksander sent his child back up the stairs, away from the action. He himself remained standing with the other elegantly dressed vampires.
Sartiria wrinkled her nose as she saw the small vampire at the back secretly join the boy. As soon as the two had disappeared over the balcony, a howling scream echoed up through the underground walls. The couple – a girl with a haircut that framed her face like a mismatched helmet and a lanky man in a baggy shirt – pressed closer together.
‘If you had anything to do with my brother’s death …’ Aleksander growled.
She visualised the three bodies she had encountered on the way up from the dungeon. Brother? Yes, that made sense. She pulled the amulet with the gemstone out of her skirt pocket and held it up.
‘Was that your brother?’
Those present gasped for breath. The old man pointed to the dangling amulet with a trembling finger. ‘The golden obsidian!’
‘When I found him, he was already dead. A Light bomb.’
‘You monster!’ Waving his fist wildly, the old man limped down the stairs and slowly transformed into his demon form. ‘We’ll show you what it means to mess with the Crimson Plains!’
‘I said he was already dead.’
‘Wait, Botond!’ Aleksander stopped the old man with a curt movement of his arm. ‘She will certainly return the Lord’s obsidian to us. We should hear her out before we decide how to proceed.’
Marika burst into the entrance hall. Admittedly, she appeared composed as she coldly ordered the guards, who were barely keeping pace with her, to slaughter the intruder. The elegant company joined in from the other side, partly furious, partly timid. Ha! Did they think Sartiria was fighting several enemies at once for the first time?
She dodged two guards, reached for her powers, catapulted forward with outstretched arms and pulled the old man and Aleksander with her. They crashed into the advancing bodies behind them. Sartiria rolled over Aleksander and a white uniformed girl, her own skirt flapping in her face – stupid garment! Crouching, she landed in front of the vampiress with the helmet haircut and swept her out of the way with a single blow. Her lover lunged, but Sartiria kicked him in the ribs, spun round, took off and met Marika in mid-air.
The vampiress clawed at her, and Sartiria returned the favour. She would show these fools that she had not been promoted to general for nothing! Deflecting another blow, she rammed her skull against Marika’s head. The fishwoman groaned and staggered in flight.
‘Mother!’
Aleksander had broken away from the tangle and shot up to them. He grabbed Sartiria by the shoulder and yanked her around. She kicked at his loins, but as he turned away in time, she hit his thigh. Then she let her wings disappear, fell and collided with a guard who had tried to grab her by the leg from below. Her roll was cushioned by one of the dead. Before the guard could get to his feet, Aleksander had swiftly followed and thrown himself on top of her. Sartiria deflected his attack so that his own momentum caused him to crash into the already bloodstained wall. She rammed her elbow against his throat and squeezed. When she felt someone behind her, she ducked. Blood spurted. She dodged to the side and saw the blond youth staring in horror at Aleksander’s chest, which he had just slashed open.
‘No! Wha—’
She punched the young man in the chin, bit him in the neck and pushed him aside in quick succession. Aleksander stood upright despite the nasty wound. To forestall the attack she saw flicker in his eyes, she grabbed his blood-soaked clothes by the torso, placed a foot on his hip and let herself fall backwards. Surprised, he lost his balance and fell with her. Taking advantage of his falling weight, she rolled with him and landed on his chest, knees on either side of his neck, hands still clawed into his shirt. This trick worked better when there were no wings in the way, but apparently no one had ever told the vampires here that a demon form could do without wings when they weren’t needed.
She heard Aleksander panting beneath her and got an overview out of the corner of her eye. The guards had already fallen back. Marika, on the other hand, looked ready to jump. Sartiria wanted to end this fight before the more despondent vampires got the idea to surround her, too.
‘Killing other vampires is an awfully stupid thing to do when we’re dealing with battle saints and the like,’ she called out to her. ‘But I am not going to let a bunch of idiots kill me just because you strike without listening! As you can see, I am strong enough to take others to their deaths if I have to. So submit or I will knock the whole building down, starting with Aleksander here!’
To reinforce her argument, she let her demonic powers flare up. At the same time, she bared her teeth and pressed a clawed hand against Aleksander’s face. She herself had – without trying particularly hard – not received a single scratch.
All eyes turned to Marika, who raised an arm to stop the remaining vampires. ‘Spare my son,’ she replied in a toneless voice, ‘and give us back the obsidian. Then we will hear what you have to say in your defence.’
The good woman showed some sense after all. Slowly, the vampires changed into their simple form. Sartiria stood up and stepped aside while Aleksander struggled to get up. She also changed back and sauntered towards Marika, slipping on the necklace with the gemstone that she had stuffed into her pocket earlier.
‘I quite like it, though.’ She grinned and turned to the rest of those present. ‘If you have lost your leader, join my army, the last and only army big enough to turn the tide of the war. We welcome any and all reinforcements.’
She watched their reactions carefully, especially Aleksander’s pensive, pained expression. Surely they understood what Sartiria was conveying. Among vampires, the strongest person in the room decided which way things went – and that was her!