Pride X Familiar ReVamp (Pride X ReVamp Book 1) (36 page)

Regardless of her crimes, no matter how much I may disagree with her, she was still my sister, and her praise was something I couldn’t ignore. But given the situation we were in, I couldn’t bask in her praise for more than a heartbeat.

“Celica, why are you here?” I looked at the stone-like doors. “Is that the Vault? Is that what you came for?”

Celica laughed for a moment. “Yes. I came to collect something I put away not long ago. I put it away because I was ordered to do so, but I didn’t relinquish my connection to it, which is why I’m the only one that can retrieve it from the Vault. In order to get something out of the Vault, you need to have a connection to it. Kind of like having a fishing line attached to the bait. The Regalia inside me connects me to the Artifact that’s inside the Vault.”

I shifted my stance, lowering my center of gravity as I readied myself to leap at her.

Her eyes narrowed. “What are you doing, Caelum?”

“Celica, I can’t let you do that. Whatever’s in there, stays in there.”

She cocked her head slightly. “What does it matter to you?”

“It matters, because I know that whatever Artifact you’ve come for is going to be used to kill people.” I shook my head. “I can’t stomach that. I can’t accept Crimson Crescents methods.”

I started walking toward her.

Celica asked, “So you’ll stand against me?”

I nodded firmly. “Yes, I will.”

She smiled. “Then show me what you can do, baby brother.”

My heart trembled as I continued approaching her. “I’ll show you everything I can do, big sister.”

I leapt at her as soon as the words left my lips.

In a heartbeat, her Artifact came into play.

Her left and right arms morphed into three-foot long blades that resembled giant talons. The back of the talons extended over her arms like curved shields. It looked organic whereas my Gauntlet was a cross of the medieval with the futuristic.

I swung my Gauntlet blade toward her.

She blocked it with one of her talons.

Her blade and mine generated a strong effect-field, and I found myself hanging in the air for a moment before she pushed me back several meters, almost back to where I’d leapt from.

Her strength surprised me, yet I chose not to dally.

I charged again, but this time I cut my leap short, landing before her and swinging the Gauntlet blade diagonally.

She avoided my slash, and I spun full circle, swinging the Gauntlet into her again.

She blocked it with ease, and after knocking my blade aside, I felt a sharp kick to my abdomen that sent me flying backwards through the air.

The skinsuit cushioned my fall. Reacting without thinking, I rolled over back onto my feet.

I was overclocking, and I perceived Celica moving in slow motion toward me. In holovid playback terms, a Regular might move at a fifth normal speed, yet I was watching Celica move at half-normal speed. In other words, she was moving more than twice as fast a Regular human being.

In fact, she was moving faster than Caprice.

Was it her Artifact that gave her such speed and strength, or was it the skinsuit?

Had she boosted her body by drinking the blood of an Aventis, such as a member of the Raynar Pride?

Even if all the above was true, I still suspected her Artifact was the greatest source of her strength. But what kind of Artifact did she possess? Was this what she’d summoned against the Enforcers? Had she fully summoned it against me, or was she calling up only what she needed? Did that mean she didn’t see me as a threat?

I didn’t have time to ponder the answer.

I needed to use every millisecond to plan my next move, and get my body moving as quickly as possible.

I blocked her attack.

I counter-attacked with a combination of strikes, and even a few kicks.

I was drawing from everything I’d learnt and practiced during the last few days.

But the barrier-field surrounding her talon-like blades and her body, was simply too strong for me to pierce through or even tax.

In contrast, I was barely able to deflect or parry even the lightest of her strikes.

I was on my back foot as soon as the battle started.

Even before I’d taken the first leap, I’d expected to be outmatched by her, yet it was still a bitter pill to swallow.

No matter what I tried, as I was now, I wasn’t going to beat her.

In fact, I was certain she was toying with me.

Seconds went by. We clashed a half dozen more times.

I avoided getting my feet knocked out from under me when she spun low and swept her leg mere millimeters above the ground.

I leapt clear of her attack, and managed to block the combination of strikes that followed when Celica chose to chase me down. I was doing well enough against her upper body strikes, but I was taking hits from her legs. Her whole body was able to generate an effect-field, whereas my fields were limited to my right arm and the right side of my body.

I was fighting her with the equivalent of one hand tied behind my back, and one leg weighed down by a ball and chain.

I knew the melee had lasted this long – a mere handful of minutes – simply because she saw fit to humor my pathetic attempt to oppose her.

Then the disparity in respective techniques, training, and experience became all the more apparent.

As her right blade slashed downwards, I couldn’t get my right arm up in time to block.

I raised my left arm instead, and realized only too late – even while overclocked – that I was going to lose the arm.

At the last moment, a weak effect-field suddenly manifested around my left arm and blocked the cutting blow.

My arm remained attached to my body, but my forearm was broken.

Excruciating pain set the left side of my body on fire.

I rolled on the ground, knocked back by the blow that broke my arm.

I could almost feel the two halves of the bone grating against each other.

The pain prevented me from rising to my feet. All I could do was gasp in agony while on my knees.

That anguish translated into despair.

Helpless, agonizing despair.

I felt weak – so pathetically weak – that tears almost sprang from eyes.

There was nothing – nothing I could do stop her.

Through the pain and emptiness my despair carved out of me, I looked up at Celica.

She had a smile on her face.

I suddenly understood what that smile meant, what that look of delight signified.

She was proud of what she’d achieved.

She had faced her inner conscience, the good part of herself, the part that valued her brother’s life and valued family, and she had beaten it.

She had crossed the line, and committed a mortal sin against her blood kin.

By breaking my arm, by willingly injuring me, Celica had released the shackles and chains that had been binding her.

She was free.

She could now be true to her words.

If I faced her again…she would kill me.

And she would do it without regret.

The young woman I looked at wasn’t my sister anymore. She looked like her. She talked like her. But she wasn’t my sister.

The girl that raised me after our parents died – that girl was dead.

As this realization struck me, I felt an overwhelming sense of loss.

An overwhelming despair drowned my body, washing away the pain of my broken arm.

I was truly an orphan now, and I accepted it the only way I could.

I howled like a wounded beast, and then I let that wounded beast take over.

No longer in control of myself as a human, I charged at her like an animal with my fangs bared.

My Artifact, the Kaiser’s Blessing, responded to that animal.

It lent its power to the beast I’d become.

#

(Severin)

I looked at the holovid images and I struggled to understand what I was seeing.

Caelum’s Fragment had manifested into two bladed shields, each one attached to the back of his forearms just before the elbows.

I wasn’t acquainted with the blades Desanto now fielded. They didn’t match what I’d read in the reports about his Artifact.

Neither did the young man that now launched himself at Celica Desanto.

The feral vision on screen could hardly be reconciled with the young man obsessed with large breasts and women’s lingerie, not to mention Simone’s underwear.

It wasn’t Galatea Academy’s Public Enemy Number One that executed a pitched battle against the woman that single handedly killed an entire detachment of Enforcers.

I wasn’t sure how to describe the creature that attacked Celica Desanto.

It looked human, but it didn’t sound human.

It sounded like a beast, like those werewolves in ancient movie recordings from before the Cataclysm.

An incessant chill ran up and down my spine as I watched and listened to Caelum Desanto roar like a hellish monster.

For the first time since they’d encountered each other, I saw Celica pushed back. For the first time, I saw real concern on her face. She had accepted she had a real problem on her hands.

She had accepted that this wasn’t her weak brother anymore.

The creature attacking her was doing so with well-practiced strikes. Simone had told me that over the last week Caelum had been receiving special training from Kaleb Deneve. Could it explain the jump in speed, power and technique I was witnessing now? I didn’t believe so.

To my mind, it felt like a different person had taken over Caelum Desanto’s body.

Perhaps I should think of it as a demonic possession.

That thought made me tremble yet again.

If Celica wasn’t overpowered yet, her plans were at least brought to a standstill.

However, even if Caelum stopped her, it would not end with a simple victory. It would end with her death.

I didn’t know Desanto that well, but I feared the repercussions should his sister die by his hands.

The sight of her smiling in joy as she realized she could face her brother and willingly hurt him had already broken a part of him, turning him into a wild beast that fought anything but wildly.

Her death would be his death, and I knew beyond any doubt I couldn’t let that happen.

I spoke to Dalton Bridges who was staring at the holovid images with a pale expression that bordered on the horrified.

“Dalton, show me the visuals on the other tunnel.”

It took him a few moments to recover and then call up the images from the cameras in the second, narrower tunnel.

Kaleb Deneve was holding his own against a dual axe wielding opponent.

The air shimmered and rippled every time Kaleb’s twin bladed lance clashed with the axes of his opponent.

In truth he was doing better than holding his own. He was winning. He was pushing his opponent back down the tunnel.

But I knew he wouldn’t win in time, and he was too far away to help Caelum Desanto.

Too far away to save him.

I turned to the holovid window looking into the stairwell.

Steiner was standing deadly still, but her tension was evident. She reminded me of a tightly wound spring, ready to uncoil in a heartbeat.

I raised my palm-slate, and called her headset directly.

“Caprice Steiner, I have a question for you.”

She looked up as though my voice was calling down to her from high above – as though she were listening to a higher being. In a way, watching events unfold from my lofty command center – the computer clubroom – I felt like something of a god.

But not a very powerful god.

In fact, my ‘angels’ weren’t doing all that well against the ‘devils’ opposing them.

“What is the question?” she asked.

“Would you risk your life for your comrades?”

She was quiet for a moment. Then she took a step forward.

“No. I would risk my life for him…and only him.”

“Then, I will send you a map. Follow it, and save him.”

I saw her look around the stairwell.

In the corner of my eye, Dalton nodded at one of his club members and I knew the map was being transmitted to Caprice’s visor.

“I have the map,” she said.

“Then run, girl. Run or fly like the wind.”

In the holovid window, I saw Caprice manifest her Valkyrie Legs. She gained three feet in height, and her legs looked long and sleek sheathed in thick, wedge shaped swords with a tapered foot. There was no ankle that I could see of. Just sleek, smooth armor. Again, like witnessing the change in Desanto’s Fragment, I was surprised by these new and different Valkyrie Legs.

They didn’t match the information I’d been given.