▪︎ Chapter 107 ▪︎ “Take a break!”

Lavinia tucked her wings against her back and dropped.

The manor rushed toward her from nearly a hundred feet below, its dark roof and surrounding grounds swelling rapidly in her vision. 

She made no effort to slow herself. At the last instant she straightened, boots touching the earth without so much as scattering the dirt beneath them, wings already folding away into her back.

She crossed the remaining distance to the manor in a few quick steps and pushed through the heavy front doors.

The others descended behind her in staggered arrivals, Ophelia landing while still carrying Diana before finally setting the her down. 

Valerie touched down next, followed by Gwendolyn and the others, their wings disappearing one after another as they followed Lavinia inside.

Diana slowed almost immediately.

"It's very dark," she commented, looking around the entrance hall.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" Ophelia replied.

Diana turned her head toward her.

Ophelia wasn't joking.

The manor seemed designed around the assumption that its occupants had absolutely no need for natural light. 

Tall windows existed, but they were heavily curtained, and the interior beyond the entrance quickly disappeared into deep shadow. 

Dark wood, black stone, crimson upholstery and metallic ornamentation filled the halls, with only sparse artificial lights breaking the gloom.

Diana glanced around once more before smiling wryly to herself.

Of course Ophelia thought it was beautiful.

She had never entirely understood why Ophelia had crossed so much of the world merely because she wanted to meet other vampires. 

Ophelia herself hadn't provided much of an explanation beyond that. She'd wanted to find them, so she had gone looking. Diana had followed.

They had encountered other vampires during the journey, briefly in most cases. Enough for Diana to notice the difference whenever Ophelia did.

And watching her now, Diana thought she understood a little better.

Ophelia had drifted toward the white-haired vampire and the orange-haired one almost immediately. 

Valerie was saying something Diana couldn't quite hear, and Ophelia answered with a dry remark that made Valerie grin. 

Gwendolyn bumped Ophelia lightly with her shoulder. Ophelia bumped her back.

It was remarkably easy.

No cautious period of figuring one another out. No wariness. They had met less than an hour ago, yet Ophelia looked comfortable in a way Diana rarely saw when they were among humans.

Diana smiled.

Perhaps the journey really had been worth it.

The white-haired vampire glanced backward.

Her solid red eyes settled on Diana for several seconds before she turned forward again.

Then she looked back a second time.

Diana raised an eyebrow.

A few moments later, Gwendolyn deliberately slowed until she fell into step beside her. 

Her gaze swept openly over Diana's golden hair, face and figure before returning to her eyes.

"You're really pretty," Gwendolyn said.

Diana laughed softly. "Some of that is probably the Thrall thing."

Gwendolyn laughed too. "Probably. Still pretty." She extended a hand. "I'm Gwendolyn."

"Diana."

"I know. But I didn't introduce myself properly before."

Diana accepted her hand. "Then it's nice to properly meet you."

Gwendolyn beamed at her and remained beside her as they continued deeper into the manor.

Ahead, Violetta pushed open a door that looked almost indistinguishable from the surrounding wall. 

Everyone filed through it, revealing a broad stone staircase descending beneath the manor.

Ophelia peered downward. "Is the dungeon like this?"

Evangeline glanced back while descending. "Pretty close. This passage is bigger, though."

"There's a dungeon?"

"Of course there's a dungeon."

Diana looked toward Ophelia.

Ophelia nodded approvingly.

Diana sighed.

The staircase descended farther than she expected before terminating at a pair of enormous doors. Lavinia reached them first, planted both palms against one, and pushed.

The door swung inward.

Her lips immediately curled into a smile.

The underground armory stretched nearly sixty meters across, broad enough that supporting pillars stood throughout the chamber. 

Racks occupied entire sections of the floor. Others lined the walls, interspersed with cabinets, armor stands and heavy tables. The collection was far larger than Lavinia had expected.

And the weapons were beautiful.

Nearly all shared the same unmistakable material: a metal so dark it appeared almost black, yet caught the light with a faint glimmer whenever she moved. 

Deep-red gems decorated guards, shafts, pommels and weapon heads. They weren't rubies. Lavinia knew that immediately.

They looked like blood somehow condensed into translucent stone, darker shapes seemingly suspended within their crimson depths.

But the similarities ended there.

Even weapons of the same type differed enormously. Lavinia saw four greatswords from where she stood, none remotely identical. 

One had a broad, viciously serrated section along part of its edge. Another was narrow and sleek. A third possessed a jagged silhouette and an elaborate guard inset with several bloodlike gems.

There were swords everywhere—more than eight at a glance—and racks of spears, axes, polearms, hammers, chains, bows, daggers and weapons Lavinia couldn't immediately name.

Valerie was the first to start touching things.

Naturally.

"Ooh."

She pulled a sword from a wall rack, lifted it upright, then tilted her head back to follow its length.

"This is really big," Valerie said. She shifted it experimentally between her hands. "I think it's a little long for me."

"Then don't use that one," Adelaide replied.

"I wasn't going to."

Violetta stopped beside an axe and ran her fingers over the flat of its dark head. "They're larger, but I don't think the weight itself will inconvenience us much."

She lifted it from the rack, testing its balance.

"Actually," Violetta continued, "with our strength, these should outperform anything a human could accomplish using the equivalent weapon."

Cordelia had already discovered something considerably larger.

She lifted a gleaming black trident from its rack, three long tines catching the light as she turned it. 

The weapon stood nearly fifteen feet from end to end, dwarfing her, yet she spun it through her hands without strain.

The difficulty wasn't its weight.

The difficulty was having almost fifteen feet of weapon indoors.

Cordelia stopped the rotation just before one tine struck a pillar, angled the shaft upward to prevent the opposite end from scraping the floor, and frowned.

"I see one problem."

Rosaline smiled. "The building?"

"The building."

Valerie abandoned the sword and wandered toward several enormous coils. She crouched, grabbed one length and tugged.

Metal hissed across metal.

A chain came loose.

Valerie's expression immediately changed.

"Oh."

She pulled again.

And again.

More dark links spilled from the rack until she had nearly thirty feet of them stretched across the floor. 

Sections along the chain possessed extremely fine cutting edges, while its terminating end broadened into a viciously shaped blade.

Valerie ran her fingers carefully along one link.

"Oh, I like this."

Nearby, Evelyn lifted a seven-foot longsword. She gave it an experimental shake, then moved it through a short arc as casually as if it weighed almost nothing.

Celestine immediately stepped farther away.

"Thank you," Evelyn murmured.

"I love you. I don't love you enough to stand there while you figure that out."

Ophelia wasn't looking for herself yet.

She went directly to the daggers.

Diana noticed and shook her head. "Ophelia—"

"No."

"I haven't even said anything."

"I know what you're going to say."

Ophelia selected one of the smaller examples, although smaller was relative. 

The dark blade was comparable in length to a human sword. She tested its weight before holding the grip toward Diana.

"Take it."

Diana stared at it.

Then at Ophelia.

"I don't know how to use that."

"Pointy end goes into whatever is trying to kill you."

"That's not training."

Ophelia's eyes narrowed. "Diana."

"No."

"If you don't take the dagger, I'll knock you unconscious and find someone to carry you back into the city."

Diana stared at her.

Ophelia stared back.

"You wouldn't."

"I absolutely would."

"After I argued with you for half an hour just to come?"

"Especially after you argued with me for half an hour."

Diana snatched the dagger from her.

Ophelia smiled. "Wonderful."

"It's a sword."

"It's a dagger."

Diana looked down at the weapon again. "Of course it is."

Around them, the armory had devolved into vampires wandering from rack to rack and testing anything that caught their attention. 

Gwendolyn had already found the spears. Adelaide was comparing polearms. 

Rosaline had discovered something coiled against a wall and was slowly drawing it out with growing interest.

Violetta looked around.

"We're a little short on time," she reminded them. "Don't spend twenty minutes finding perfection. Grab whichever one works."

Lavinia barely heard her.

Something had caught her attention.

She crossed the chamber toward another rack. The sensation grew stronger with every step—not knowledge exactly, and certainly not skill. Just a peculiar certainty that she was approaching something she wanted.

Her eyes traveled upward.

And upward.

Lavinia blinked.

Then she smiled.

"Oh," she murmured. "So this is what romance feels like."

Valerie looked over from her chain. "You're always surrounded by romance."

Lavinia glanced at her.

Valerie grinned.

"Not now."

───

The air outside Oakridge was thick with smoke.

Gunfire hammered continuously across the defensive line. 

Flamethrowers sent sheets of fire across the ground wherever the ants gathered, burning thousands of them at once, while explosives threw dirt, bodies and pieces of animals into the air. 

Giant spiders crawled over heaps of corpses, their long legs finding purchase where vehicles couldn't.

For the moment, they were being held.

Barely.

"Left! Left!"

A woman twisted and emptied her rifle at a spider clambering over the mound in front of her.

Rounds punched into its body.

The creature continued forward.

She screamed through clenched teeth and held the trigger, walking the shots upward until the spider's body ruptured. 

It emitted a shrill, piercing screech and collapsed sideways.

She sucked in a breath.

Another spider came over it.

"Oh, fuck—"

Its leg rose.

The pointed appendage descended toward her stomach.

Something displaced the air with a violent—

WHOOOM.

The spider exploded.

The soldier flinched backward as fragments and fluid sprayed across her uniform and face.

For a moment she simply stood there.

Then she wiped slime from her eyes.

Someone was standing where the spider had been.

No.

A vampire.

Golden hair streamed behind her. Dark skin was speckled with gore. Empty red eyes briefly settled on the soldier before turning toward the Tide.

And in her hands—

"What the hell..."

The sword was almost nine feet long.

Its dark blade alone was taller than the vampire wielding it, sleek rather than bulky despite its impossible proportions. 

Deep-red gems gleamed around the guard like crystallized blood.

Lavinia adjusted her grip.

Then she lunged.

Her boots left the ground.

She accelerated upward and forward, greatsword following behind her before she twisted in the air and brought it around.

WHOOOM. 

Another spider came apart.

The blade passed through its body and several legs without noticeably slowing.

Lavinia giggled.

Momentum carried her through the arc. She spun, reversed the sword, and drove its point into the earth.

The blade punched deep into the blood-soaked ground.

Lavinia dropped toward it.

She landed lightly atop the greatsword's handle, one boot balanced neatly against the pommel while the other settled beside it, perched above the battlefield on a weapon that was nearly twice her height.

She looked around.

Animals rushed everywhere. Soldiers fired from behind battered positions. Something enormous burned perhaps a hundred yards away.

Lavinia frowned.

"I didn't rush ahead that much."

The others were late.

Something whistled overhead.

Lavinia looked up.

Thirty feet of black chain dropped out of the sky.

Its bladed end smashed straight through a wolf below, pulverizing its torso against the ground. Before the remains had even finished collapsing, the chain snapped sideways.

The corpse went flying.

It sailed tens of feet and disappeared into the Tide.

Valerie descended after it, orange hair whipping behind her. She landed with the chain already moving, one hand pulling while the other redirected several links.

She flicked her wrist.

The motion traveled outward.

Twenty feet away, the chain snapped across the advancing animals. Bodies opened along its path. 

A boar tumbled over itself. Two deer collapsed almost simultaneously. Something smaller simply disappeared beneath the spray.

Valerie smiled.

"The others just kind of picked a spot and started fighting!"

Lavinia stared at her.

"You all abandoned me?"

"You abandoned us first!"

"That's different!"

"How?"

"I did it faster!"

Valerie laughed.

Lavinia hopped down.

Her boots sank slightly.

"Ugh."

Blood had mixed with mud, insect fluid and the internal matter of things Lavinia couldn't identify. Every step produced a wet sucking sound.

She looked toward the soldier she'd saved.

The woman was still staring at her.

Lavinia wrapped both hands around the greatsword's grip.

"Take a break!" she shouted.

"What?"

"Take a break!"

Then Lavinia yanked.

The greatsword tore free.

She disappeared.

The soldier's eyes couldn't follow her.

One moment Lavinia was beside the embedded sword.

The next she was twenty yards away.

A massive animal charged through the smoke.

Lavinia planted one foot, raised the greatsword overhead and brought it down.

The dark blade cleaved through hide, muscle and bone, continued through the creature beneath it and buried itself in the ground with a violent eruption of mud.

Lavinia ripped it sideways.

Blood struck the black metal.

Then vanished into it.

Her smile widened.

She moved again.

Valerie watched for several seconds.

Lavinia wasn't a swordswoman.

Not really.

Valerie knew that.

They had found the weapons less than an hour ago.

Yet the greatsword behaved in Lavinia's hands as though its impossible proportions had been designed specifically around her. 

She knew where to put her hands. She knew how far the blade extended behind her without looking. 

When a swing missed, she redirected its momentum rather than fighting it. When it passed through something, she was already turning with it.

Not mastery.

Something more basic.

Something underneath mastery.

Lavinia ducked beneath a leaping cat, pivoted, and brought the sword upward.

The animal separated in the air.

She continued the motion into a turn, golden hair spreading around her, black dress twisting with her body as the enormous blade swept horizontally through three more creatures.

Blood sprayed across it.

The dark surface drank.

Valerie looked down at her chain.

"Okay."

She liked hers too.

Very much.

She gathered several lengths into her hands and began spinning the weighted, bladed end.

Once.

The chain hissed outward.

Twice.

More links escaped her grip.

The circle widened.

Animals rushed toward her.

Valerie planted her feet.

"Come on, then."

A third rotation released almost the entire length.

The chain screamed through the air.

Its bladed sections struck the Tide.

For nearly twenty-five feet, the advancing mass ceased to be animals and became fragments of blood, fur and flesh.

The chain continued through them.

Valerie pulled.

Thirty feet of black metal curved back toward her through the smoky air, blood sliding between the links and disappearing into the weapon as though it had never been there.

Her solid-red eyes brightened.

"Oh," Valerie murmured.

She grinned and spun it again.

"I really like this."