Page 69 of Dark Master's Redemption

I pause, and feel some of those lights pause with me. A few of them move now, as if coming towards me, though they are still so far away.

I was once a lost Revenant, like you. I know the sting of that endless Night, that lives inside me still. But because I delved so deeply into my darkest Night, I now know the feel of True Light. The True Love that made the universe—and makes it still, if our hearts are pure, and our minds are clear, and our true souls know the way.

More of those lights drift towards me. My heart beats hard in my chest, feeling them.

Not so very far away now.

I am ready for a change. I put both hands to my heart now as I feel it beat, so alive and strong in my chest. Black wings of living gold and red fire, and blazing rainbow-dark light unfurl from my spine, indomitable as I continue. I am ready for things to be different in Vampire, Fae, and Dark Fae society. I am ready for peace, rather than war, between us all. I am ready for the True Love to unify the Light of day and the darkest Night. So we can find our Origin again. And be happy, at last.

They come towards me. I wait in the blue-lit darkness, blazing as they come.

Fight with me. Join me, to battle the darkness that would keep us all separate and alone. I say, coming to my point at last as all those lights move towards me now. For you and I both know how it feels to be lost in the darkness, separate and alone—and it is knowledge of this very feeling that drives us towards the Light of True Love now, because we finally have perspective on the Night. We are not one, but both, melded together in impossible harmonies of creation that surpass this separation that divides us. Come to me, fight with me—and help me unite the Light and the Night… for good.

They come. All of them are hurrying towards me now, as I feel a few minds able to reach me through my copious wards at last. Because each and every Vampire Revenant we returned at the Bloodstone event was a powerful Master—far more ancient and mighty than myself, or even many modern Vampires on the Council.

I feel Florian’s Master’s Kiss upon them burn off now as the hope I give brightens inside them. I can’t hear Florian inside me anymore—but it’s as if I can hear him screaming, raving as those powerful, ancient Master Vampires he Kissed to him with the Council’s help when he overtook this place are now headed back to me.

Far more lights are coming towards me now than the returned Revenants who remained at the Red Letter Hotel Florence; I realize now that my speech has recalled not just those seven to me, but the entire thirty Revenants who had been returned by my trio’s Music, who are now scattered all around the world.

I don’t need to Kiss these Vampires, I understand, as tirades of multi-hued black smoke come hurtling towards me through every painting and vault in my warded halls now. These wards are as nothing to them, ancient in their power as they materialize before me.

At last, the smoke stops coming. Thirty Master Vampires surround me now, watching me as I sit naked on the floor streaked in shit and blood, heaving hard breaths. As they watch me with clever, darkly aware eyes, I know I don’t need to bind these ancient Vampires to my service—indeed, I don’t want to. What I need to do is inspire them, as I gaze around every pair of eyes and see I’ve tempted them with what they crave most.

Hope.

The Pict woman steps forward now, stepping so quietly to my side I only hear my own breath. Her dark eyes are dire as she takes me in, extending a finger to touch the bleeding manacle-tracks on my wrists. With a single touch, she heals them.

Then licks her finger clear of my blood—savoring it, as she closes her dark eyes.

“He speaks the truth, from his heart,” she says, as she turns to regard the once-Revenants watching us. “He means every word of what he said to us just now. He does not need our submission, not like other Masters would ask of us, to secure our ancient might. Only our alliance… to throw down the Gold Eyes of our nightmares and set us all free, at last.”

My eyebrows rise as she says this. I hadn’t even mentioned the Gold Eyes anywhere in my speech; but as I see sober nods and deep affirmation in every Vampire around me now, I understand why they’ve come.

These Vampires care nothing for the trials of lesser mortals; they were gods among our kind, way back when divisions among our power were less and the might they wielded was far more. No, these ancient Vampires will help me in my modern, far more mortal aims, because they care about only one thing.

Finding the Gold Eyes—and annihilating him, at last.

I see in their eyes how much he tortured them, all of them, during their endless Revenant Night. Not only that, but he was the instrument of their annihilation. I see it in so many eyes now as I feel their minds whisper all around me—hating the Gold Eyes to their very fundament, and everything he represents.

They respect me, that I’m going up against him. They honor me, for trying to find a way to break free of his control and endless torment. Because myself and my trio have already broken them from part of that terrible equation, just as we broke me free, as well. Now, they want to go the rest of the way.

And know I’m the dark horse they need to bet on to achieve it.

Just then, a terrible sound rings through the Hotel’s halls and back passages. My own alarm system from long ago, Florian uses it again now, to inform me of his terrors as his disembodied voice penetrates even my safest place.

“Quindici DaPonti. I feel your bonds to me have been sundered; my blood-oath between us is broken, and now you will pay my price,” Florian says as he goads me, though his voice is rasping and terrible, as if he was damaged by that terrible wave of Light that blazed from me earlier.

“Because you have broken free of me, my manacles no longer upon you, it is your Vampires who will suffer my punishment,” Florian continues, rasping and terrible as he addresses me. “No more games, Quinn; I have already taken a hundred into my control, and will break them posthaste. More will come; your Dark Haven will be as nothing by the time you move to retake it. And I will laugh all the way to your true grave as you die from seeing how terribly they have been tortured and maimed before their own true death. Be warned, Quinn; take your freedom, if you can enjoy it. Because I am coming for you. And only true death will be your solace before the next dawn.”

As Florian’s terrible voice dies from the halls, silence envelops us. But then a tall, frighteningly gaunt Master Vampire with burning red eyes steps forward from the rest of the returned Revenants.

Addressing me.

“Tell us where to go and what to do, to save your people,” he roars softly like an ancient wind of hell as his insane red eyes stare me down. “Only honor what you came here to achieve—kill the Gold Eyes. And set us all free from our endless torment.”

“That, I will do. I swear it.” I press both hands to my heart in the solemnest oath I’ve ever taken. My spilled blood on the ground creates a kind of blood-oath for me now, as a wind of magic stirs all around us, ancient.

But because I’m a Dark Fae, that blood-oath does strange things. Strange, tremendous things now, as I feel all these ancient Master Vampires around me acknowledge it.

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