Page 68 of Madness Behind the Mask
A child’s scream breaks my concentration, and I look towards Bonnie as she cradles her sister, but it’s already too late for him. I am no longer in control of my magic. The monsters arecoming.
My twins fly across the room and into a corner, putthereby their father’s telekinesis. Ryo joins them at the same time, and Bonnie reaches for her brother. Jonathan and Leon fight back to backin front of them, bleeding from various woundsas vampires hit them from all sides, their claws and knives swiping fast.
I can’t see Caden through the thick of bodies phasing in and out of our kitchen, but I know he’s here. Still alive. Still fighting. Somewhere…
The vampire who started this all takes a step back, and my eyes snap to him. I won’t let him leave. If we are to die, so will he.
Screaming, Ifall to my knees andopen my shadows up further, hurrying the monsters on like a steak waved in the face of a starving dog.They come. Finally. Gnarled clawed hands, twisted and half-decayed shoot out of the swirling black smoke spread across the floor. Mandibles and open maws slick with blood and drool, bits of rotten corpses stuckbetween their teeth. Beady black eyes, set by the dozen on furry heads and stalks that swivel. Foul-smelling tentacles that leak an acid that burns the very air.
They come from everywhere, in all their monstrous forms, grabbing vampires and yanking them into the dark world below. Little snacks to chew and munch on, the cracking of bones interrupted only by the screams, as they continue to claw their way into our world.
“Go!” the vampire screams as his body starts to fade. A gnarled hand shoots for him, but he is already gone, and the rest of his men leave soon after, blinking out fast like dying stars, and I am left to scream.
I can’t stop the shadows from opening up further.
And now there is no one left to eat other than myhusband – the rest of my family protected by our blood.
Tears falling down my cheeks, I turn to Leon, hoping Uncle David instructed him what to do if a Shadow ever fell to the magic we controlled.
His eyes snap to me,then away as his father screams. A tentacle has wrapped around his left foot, and some godsawful bulbous form is pulling itself out of the dark towards him,using him as an anchor. Hisses erupt as more appendagesfly towards the only morsel left in the room.
Caden shoves as many of them away as he can with his telekinesis, but his power is waning, drained and taxed hard. His eyes snap to me without any anger, without any pain, and I know he is about to give up. Or perhaps he simply can’t hold out anymore.
He mouths, “I love you,” just as the tentacle manages to pull him to his knees.
I scream.
And then there is blissful darkness.
My son’s shadowshaving consumed me, hopefully in time...
Twenty-Five
ALERIC
14AUGUST1947
I land in my own house across town, my body buzzing with adrenaline.After such careful planning,aftercutting through their guards without notice, after leaving nearly a hundred dead in our wake before we attacked the Shadow family itself, I came so close to death.
Throwing my head back, I laugh, exhilaration escaping my lungs rather than the angry, frustrated curses that I’m sure will leave my men as soon as theyphase in.
Ihaveneverfelt more alive.
A male vampire phases in front of me as if on queue, breathing hard and covered in blood. He straightens as he looks at me, his dark-gray eyes so similar to my own. He inherited them from me, after all.
“Why the fuck are you laughing?” he asks. “We failed in our mission and lostoverfiftyof the sired.”
“Yes, yes, what a shame,” I say, but not even the deaths ofa good portion ofmy sired ‘children’ canextinguish the joy inside me.
Fornearlythree hundred years I’ve been alive.
And not once have I ever felt like this.
Sau Shadow… There was such fire in her eyes, such devotion to burning the world downaroundher.
My cock twitches as I turn from my sonand look out the window of my study.Despite the evening hour, the sun is still strong in the Floridian sky. Such a beautiful start to the night...
“What ashame?”my sonseethes as he stalks over to me, his rage blistering the air so much witheverystep that I can practically feel where he is in the room.
