"You are mine," she purred, but her expression changed when a dagger, its hilt sculpted into the shape of a silver dragon, ripped deep into her elbow! Histra fell back and howled. Danica quickly retrieved her other enchanted dagger and stood facing the vampiress, not backing down an inch.
The monk's confidence slipped away considerably, though, when she peeked back over her shoulder and saw Kierkan Rufo holding Dorigen, the woman's head angled so that the man could easily snap her neck.
Danica felt a wave of nausea roll over her as she considered the implications of Rufo in the library, Rufo and Histra both vampires! She understood the coverings over the windows then, and realized, to her horror, that the place had apparently fallen fully.
"Danica," Rufo said lewdly. "My dear, dear Danica. I cannot tell you how I have longed for your return!"
Danica's knuckles whitened as she gripped her daggers tightly. She was looking for a shot, looking to put one of the enchanted knives over Dorigen's shoulder into Rufo's ugly face.
As if he read her thoughts, Rufo tightened his grip on Dorigen and jerked the mage's head back a bit more, forcing her to grimace at the pain.
"It would be a little thing to tear her head from her shoulders," Rufo taunted. "Would you like to see that?"
Danica's muscles relaxed slightly.
"Good," the perceptive vampire said. "There is no need for us to be enemies in this. Dear Danica, I will make you a queen."
"Your queen will cut your heart out," Danica replied. She knew she shouldn't have said those words with Dorigen so obviously in peril, but the thought of what Rufo was offering filled her throat with bile. She couldn't bear to talk to the man in life. Now ...
"I expected as much from you, stubborn Danica," Rufo retorted sharply. "But as for you, Dorigen," he purred, turning the mage's head so that she could readily view his pallid face. "We were allies once, and so we shall be allies again! Come to me, and be a queen, and know more power than Aballister could ever give you!"
For just an instant, Danica feared that Dorigen might give in. The price of refusal was obvious. Danica reconsidered her fear immediately, though, remembering all she had learned of Dorigen during their journey to the library.
"Cadderly will destroy you," Danica warned Rufo. The tall vampire relaxed his grip and turned angry eyes toward her. Nothing could get Rufo's attention more than the mention of Cadderly.
Danica locked stares with the vampire, but not before she noticed Dorigen's lips moving again.
"He should be at the library's doors by now," Danica went on, feigning confidence. "He is strong, Rufo. He crushed Aballister and all of Castle Trinity."
"I would know if he had arrived!" the vampire roared, and his tone alone told Danica that she had rattled him. "If he had, I would be eagerly ..."
Rufo's words turned into a jumble, all his body jerking suddenly as arcs of blue lightning shot out of Dorigen's hands and pulsed about the vampire's body. Dorigen twisted, growled, and pulled away, and the final shock of the spell sent the two flying apart, wafts of smoke from Rufo's burning flesh rising in the air between them.
Dorigen was casting again, immediately, as Rufojried to recover his senses.
"I will torture you for eternity!" the vampire promised, and Dorigen knew she was doomed, knew that she could not complete her spell before Rufo fell over her.
A spinning metallic sliver caught Rufo's attention. He threw his arm in front of his face and shrieked as the tip of Danica's dagger bored through his forearm.
Danica smelled sulphur mixed with the scent of burned flesh. She looked to Dorigen, then back to Rufo as he yanked out her dagger and tossed it to the floor.
"Run," Danica heard Dorigen say, and when she looked back to the wizard, her heart fell. Dorigen stood calmly, too calmly, a small ball of flame dancing in the air above her uplifted palm. Danica knew enough about wizardry to understand.
"No!" Rufo roared. He threw his robes tightly about him and fell within himself, seeking the source of his newfound powers.
"Run," Dorigen said again, her voice serene.
Danica had taken two steps through the doorway before she looked ahead and realized that Histra was coming for her again. She lashed out with her remaining dagger, more to throw the vampiress off balance than to score a hit, then spun to the side and down, coming around with a circling kick that caught the dodging Histra on the back of the leg. She heard Rufo command Dorigen to stop and heard the confident wizard laugh in response.
Danica kicked off, launching Histra back toward the chapel's open door and using the momentum to propel herself farther from harm's way. She stumbled for the effort, and threw herself with the flow, falling and rolling, as Rufo's form melted, as Dorigen dropped a ball of flame on the floor between herself and where the vampire had stood.
It all seemed surreal to Danica, as if all the world had gone into slow motion. Flames rolled out the chapel door, she saw Histra's hair and arms reach forward from the force of the blast. Then there was just the fireball, reaching lazily toward Danica.
She curled up, tucked her head, and became, through years of training, like stone. The flames licked at her, swirled around her, but Danica felt only the slightest heat. When it was ended, an instant later, she was unharmed, and only the fringes of her cloak had been so much as singed.
The slow-motion effect of that horrible instant was gone, reversed, it seemed, when Danica looked upon Histra, the vampiress hurling herself about the room, slamming walls and flailing against the back of her shoulders as her flesh bubbled under the hungry flames. The oaken support beams about the room smoldered; tapestries a thousand years old were fast consumed; and acrid black smoke poured from the destroyed chapel - where Dorigen had given her life.
Danica fought back tears as she scrambled for the door. She had to link up with Cadderly and the dwarves, maybe find Shayleigh. She had to ...
The door would not open.
Danica tugged with all her might, and the handle broke off, sending her sprawling to the floor.
A green fog rolled out of a crack in the wall beside the door, swirling into a funnel cloud, then blowing away suddenly and dissipating, leaving an angry and hardly wounded Kierkan Rufo standing before the monk.
Danica's Fall
Danica's right hook caught Rufo on the side of the jaw and snapped his head to the side. Slowly and ominously, the vampire turned back to face the monk. Danica hit him again with another vicious hook, then a third time, in the same place, with the same punch.
Rufo laughed as his head turned slowly back to center, not a welt or mark on his white cheek.
"You cannot hurt me," the vampire said in quiet, even tones.
In response, Danica drove her knee straight up between Rufo's legs, the force of the blow lifting the vampire up on his toes. Rufo merely smiled.
"I should have guessed you'd have nothing there to hurt," Danica said, stinging the monster with words where her fists had failed.
Rufo's face contorted, rage bubbling through his cool demeanor. A feral snarl escaped his lips, and his arm shot forward for Danica's throat.
Danica's golden-hilted dagger, sculpted like a tiger, drove deep into Rufo's forearm. Faster than Rufo could react, the skilled monk ripped the blade along his arm, then tore it out and slashed Rufo across the face, marring the same cheek she had punched.
She went into a frenzy then, and so did Rufo, Danica slashing this way and that, Rufo's grasping hands trying futilely to catch the nasty blade. Danica scored hit after minor hit, then plunged the enchanted dagger deep into Rufo's chest, seeking his heart.
By the way Rufo suddenly froze, his hands going wide to the side and his expression shocked, she could tell she had hit the mark. Unblinking, eyeing the vampire squarely and showing not a trace of fear, Danica gave a sharp, short twist.
The side of Rufo's mouth began to twitch; Danica expected he would fall.
They held that macabre pose for a long while, small growls escaping Rufo's mouth. Why didn't he fall? Danica wondered. Why didn't he just die?
Her confidence began to waver as Rufo's hand eased toward her wrist. She gave another sharp tug, and the vampire grimaced. She turned the blade again, and though Rufo's pain was obvious on his pallid face, his hand kept its steady approach.