Page 68 of Dark Master's Redemption

I want to scream from my pain now, but Eduardo won’t let me as his power takes my voice, and Calla’s keeps me on my feet. Everything inside me is twisting, spearing, horrible as all my previous injuries from when Florian used me like a pincushion from his ire rip back open and gush dark lines of blood down my naked, shit-smeared body.

They don’t care. They laugh, sipping their wine as Calla waves her hand for me to dance faster. I’m in a frenzy now, inundated by her and Eduardo’s power.

As Florian grins—thoroughly enjoying the show.

I’m close to passing out now, my Light becoming so dim as I lose all hope of ever getting out of this alive, much less being left alone to muster the returned Revenants and get them to fight for me, when something suddenly blazes inside me.

I feel it as my connection to Lucca and Ariana—and my entire Dark Haven—is seared open wide by a towering explosion of Light.

Light so bright, it’s a hundred times the normal light of day as it blazes from me in a searing wave now, unstoppable. I throw a hand up, covering my eyes with a cry as Calla and Eduardo scream, their twin powers abruptly cut off inside me.

It blasts even Florian back as his golden manacles and torque melt in that incredible wave of heat and Light, dripping down my naked, shit-smeared skin.

Breaking his fog inside me.

I don’t waste a moment, as that Light sears everything around me and melts my manacles, freeing me all at once from Florian’s torment. I use whatever power I have left to thrust up a towering shield of darkness all around me, devouring the dining area of my old rooms—then dash with my last remaining strength to a pastoral painting on the wall that accesses the Hotel’s back-ways.

It still responds to my power; it opens and I’m through, before my obscuring blast of Night magic can die. Heaving hard breaths, I’m in the blue-lit back halls of the Hotel.

As I hear a roar of fury and agony on the other side of the painting—from Florian.

I don’t hear Calla or Eduardo, and I don’t stick around to find out if they survived that incredible blaze of Light that came somehow from Lucca and Ariana, and the rest of my Dark Fae at the Summers estate. Strength fills me now from being connected to them once more, my wounds healing fast now that I’m once again bolstered by their magic; but these back ways of the Hotel aren’t infallible.

Even if Florian has not yet figured out how to break my magical encryptions on these ancient passages, he’ll get the Council’s help to do so. I have only one safe space I can go, where I know I can hide my magical signature and imprint from any seeking mind.

Because I’ve used that cellar as my hiding-space, all my Vampire life.

I make it to my deep underground solar and stumble through the access painting at a dead run, shutting it hard behind me. Wards in this space flare up all around me now for protection; laid down by me back when Emiliana was in charge, no one knew about this space for ages, until I ran this Dark Haven and told Devi and Curio about it.

This is my private panic room and living area, as the vast wards flare up all around me now. They’re made of both Vampire Bloodsigns and Faeanic runes, because I was well aware I could use both, even the moment I became Dark Fae, though I thought I was Vampire.

As my underground solar of art, artifacts, musical instruments, and wine glows around me now, lit bright by the power of my wards, I sink to a seat on the cold marble floor. I breathe hard, some part of me still amazed I’ve escaped.

The Romero’s frenzied taint is no longer inside me; neither is Florian’s as I look down now and see his golden manacles and torque melted upon my naked body. Though their magic is broken, they’ve smelted into my skin when that blaze hit them from inside me; I growl as I pull each runnel of gold from me, not caring that skin rips up with it.

Now that I’m connected to my Dark Haven again, I’ll heal fast; with a sigh, I plunk my head back upon the blue-curtained wall, not caring that I’m smeared in shit and bleeding more now from these new wounds.

I’m free—and my bonds to my beloveds and Dark Haven are still alive inside me.

Everything in me wants to take a shower, get some food, and recover both mentally and physically from all the torture I’ve been through over the past twenty-four hours. But I know my priorities, as I still my hard breaths and pounding heart, diving deep inside myself now.

Because the returned Revenants know I’m here—and they’ll be looking for me, now that I’ve escaped. As I reach deep inside my auric body, I search for something, anything, that connects me to those returned Revenants.

As the strangest sensation like dark stars opens up inside me then, I watch those stars move all around the Hotel—and realize I can feel all the Revenants the Music returned at the Bloodstone event. They’re bound to me, via what Ariana, Lucca, and I did that night; bound to all of us by the power of the magic we wrought, yet still free to live their own lives and have their own will.

Just as Luliana described, then the Pict woman, it feels like a strangely bright Light fills their Vampiric darkness now, though none of them are Dark Fae like me and my current Dark Haven. I feel them, nonetheless, beaming like tiny stars in the darkness, now that I am restored to my connections. As they move about the Hotel, I decide to try something I’m not sure will work.

I go to the quietest place inside me now, that was still there, even when I was Revenant.

All you who were Revenant, as I was, hearken to me. I say now inside that quietest place, which feels ancient and endless, even as it feels so terribly fleeting. It’s like a breath inside my very soul as I call to the returned Revenants now—whispering to those tiny lights, through the darkness.

I feel them stop. I feel them listen, as those little lights inside my mind halt.

There is a beauty in the universe, which is light. I say as I bare my truest heart to them, speaking from my agony and rawness right now, but also my brightest Light as it shines through to Lucca and Ariana via our restored connections. That light is Love—not false love for a person, a place, a status, or a thing, as many strive for, but an all-encompassing, all-expansive True Love, that permeates the darkness.

I feel the returned Revenants listening to me. They hear what I have to say, as I contact them from my soul’s deepest heart, and through my mind also now.

That True Love created us, I continue, not planning anything but speaking from my deepest heart, which knows the right words. That Love lives inside all of us, be we Fae, Vampire, or Dark Fae. And it was that Love, that returned all of us from darkness. And has brightened inside us now… chasing the evil of our blackest nightmares away.

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