Chapter 3: The King's Justice
1264 Words
I woke up shivering.
The effects of the vampire venom had faded, leaving me with a hangover that felt like someone had driven a rusty nail into my skull. My body ached, my mouth tasted of copper, and the spot on my neck where he had bitten me throbbed with a dull, phantom heat.
I sat up on the pile of furs, disoriented. For a split second, I thought I was back in my bunk at the Resistance base. Then I saw the stone walls. The ancient weapons.
And him.
Kaelo was standing by the heavy iron door, his back to me. He had found a black cloak somewhere—probably from one of the other dusty chests—and draped it over his tattered robes. It made him look less like a corpse and more like a shadow given form.
"You sleep like the dead," he said without turning around. His voice was no longer raspy; it was rich, deep, and commanding. "Get up."
I scrambled to my feet, swaying slightly as dizziness hit me. "What time is it?"
"Time is irrelevant down here. But on the surface, the sun has set. The night is ours."
He turned to face me. In the gloom, his golden eyes seemed to generate their own light. He looked me up and down, his gaze lingering on the bandage I had slapped onto my neck wound from my med-kit before passing out.
"You look fragile," he noted, sounding displeased. "Try not to break."
"I'm not fragile," I snapped, checking my belt. My gun was gone—he had kicked it away in the main chamber—but I still had my combat knife. I made a move to adjust it.
"Keep the toy," he said dismissively, noticing my hand on the hilt. "If we encounter anything real, that toothpick won't save you. I will."
He opened the iron door and gestured into the darkness of the corridor. "Walk."
We moved in silence through the labyrinth of the Crypt. Kaelo didn't need a light; he moved with the predatory assurance of a creature who owned the dark. I stumbled behind him, relying on the dying battery of my chem-light.
As we ascended, the air changed. The sterile, preserved smell of the deep tomb gave way to the stench of rot, sewage, and wet fur. We were entering the "Feral Zone"—the upper levels of the underground ruins where the mindless, starveling vampires dwelt.
"Stop."
Kaelo halted so abruptly I almost ran into his back. He stood perfectly still, his head c****d to the side.
"Do you hear that?" he whispered.
I strained my ears. At first, I heard nothing. Then, the sound of wet footsteps. Scrabbling claws on stone. Heavy, panting breaths.
"Scavengers," I hissed, my blood running cold. "A pack. Probably five or six."
"Scavengers..." Kaelo tasted the word like it was rotten meat. "Is that what my children have become? Rats scurrying in the dark?"
Before I could answer, they emerged from the shadows.
There were six of them. Twisted, emaciated vampires with grey skin stretched tight over their bones. Their eyes were cloudy white—blinded by living in total darkness—but their noses were twitching violently.
They smelled us. Specifically, they smelled me.
"Warm blood..." one of them croaked, drool dripping from its jaw. "Fresh... sweet..."
They fanned out, blocking the corridor, their claws scraping against the floor. They ignored Kaelo completely, their attention fixed on the pounding of my heart.
I pulled my knife, stepping back until my shoulders hit the wall. "Kaelo," I warned, my voice tight. "They're Ferals. They don't have higher brain functions. They just feed."
"Pathetic," Kaelo spat.
One of the Ferals, bolder than the rest, lunged. It didn't go for Kaelo. It went straight for me, a blur of teeth and claws.
I braced myself for the impact, raising my knife—
But the impact never came.
There was a sound like a whip cracking.
I blinked. The Feral was gone.
Kaelo was standing in front of me, his hand outstretched. He was holding the Feral by the throat, lifting the creature three feet off the ground with zero effort.
The Feral shrieked, clawing at Kaelo's arm, but Kaelo didn't even flinch. He looked at the creature with a mixture of pity and disgust.
"You dare ignore your King?" Kaelo asked softly.
The Feral hissed, biting at the air.
"No manners," Kaelo sighed.
He squeezed.
There was a wet crunch, sickening and final. The Feral's head was torn clean from its shoulders. Kaelo tossed the body aside like a piece of garbage and dropped the head.
The remaining five Ferals froze. The scent of ancient, potent blood—the blood of a First Generation—suddenly registered in their rot-addled brains. They realized too late that the predator wasn't the human girl. It was the monster standing in front of her.
"Kneel," Kaelo commanded. The word wasn't shouted, but it carried a shockwave of power that rattled my teeth.
The Ferals didn't kneel. They attacked. Driven by madness and hunger, they rushed him all at once.
"Stay behind me," Kaelo ordered. He didn't look back at me. He stepped forward into the slaughter.
It wasn't a fight. It was an execution.
I watched, mesmerized and horrified, as he dismantled them. He moved too fast for my eyes to track. I saw flashes of movement—a hand crushing a ribcage, a kick shattering a spine. He didn't use weapons. He used his body, turning himself into a scythe of death.
Blood sprayed across the walls, painting the ancient stone in fresh crimson.
In less than twenty seconds, it was over.
Silence returned to the corridor, broken only by the dripping of blood.
Kaelo stood amidst the c*****e. He took a slow breath, composing himself. Then he turned to look at me.
He was terrifying. There was a splash of blood on his high cheekbone, a stark contrast to his pale skin. His hands were coated in red.
He walked toward me. I flinched, pressing myself harder against the wall.
He stopped inches from me. He raised a bloody hand. I thought he was going to hurt me, but he simply reached out and wiped a speck of dust from my shoulder.
"Are you afraid?" he asked, his golden eyes searching mine.
"Yes," I whispered. I couldn't lie to him.
"Good." A dark satisfaction curled his lips. "Fear keeps you alive. Fear makes you sharp."
He brought his hand to his mouth, licking a stripe of the Ferals' blood from his thumb. He grimaced immediately, spitting it out.
"Filth," he muttered. "They taste of decay."
He looked at me again, his gaze dropping to my neck, to the hidden vein pulsing beneath the bandage. His pupils dilated.
"Not like you," he murmured. "You taste like salvation."
He stepped back, turning toward the exit again, the black cloak swirling around him.
"Come, Lyra. We are leaving this pit. I want to see what else has been broken in my kingdom."
I stared at his back, my heart racing. I looked at the dismembered bodies on the floor, then at the man—the monster—walking away.
He was a tyrant. A killer. A nightmare from the history books.
But as I stepped over the corpse of a Feral that would have torn me to shreds, a treacherous thought whispered in the back of my mind:
He is a monster. But now... he is my monster.
I sheathed my knife and followed him into the dark.
- Writer
