Chapter 762: Alucard

Vesa felt a familiar trace beneath the power tearing through Thepes's body.

It appeared when he pulled against the light woman, then vanished beneath the next rush of blood from the ruined street.

Her four wings carried her along the wall, above the wounded gathered in its shelter.

"King, I need a clearer view of his chest."

Alex struck a red-eyed attacker away from the road. "What did you find?"

"The artifact."

Alex had told her what they had used to make this thing. Hearing it had been bad enough. Now she could distinguish the familiar pattern beneath the other powers grinding through his chest.

They had buried her master's work inside an abomination and turned it against the people he had meant to restore.

Until now, those powers had been moving together inside a body that kept repairing itself. The struggle with Lolth was pulling them apart, exposing the familiar trace for more than an instant. Vesa lifted one small hand and reached toward it.

The answer was faint enough that she almost lost it when an Imperial weapon struck the buildings behind the service yard.

Her hand stopped in the air.

"Master?"

"Vesa. You found a noisy place to call from."

The voice was weak, but she knew it.

For a moment, she forgot what she'd meant to say. After waiting so long for that voice, she could only listen.

Then a soldier cried out behind her.

A piece of broken stone fell from the wall. Vesa flicked one hand toward it. Red runes caught the fragment above the man lying beside the corner and turned it aside into the empty street.

"Can you hear me clearly?" she asked.

"Some of it. What is pulling through my artifact?"

Vesa looked toward Thepes's distorted shoulders.

Vesa forced herself to look at the two flows instead of asking where he had been.

"They used it to make a Vampire Progenitor. He set dead vampires on our army. Now he's taken power from Arachne's web, and she's pulling it back through him."

A short silence followed.

"Who is with you?"

"King and Queen. Our army is protecting the wounded."

"Let them hear me."

Vesa let Alex and Mingyue hear him through their existing connection. She kept the artifact's faint trace separate from the stronger flows crossing it, holding to the voice she recognized.

Alex's hammer stopped above the next rune.

"Alucard?"

"Yes."

Alex looked toward Thepes, then back at her. The last time he had spoken to Alucard, it had been inside his own inner world. Vesa could understand his confusion.

"This voice is reaching us through the artifact," she said. "I found the trace when the channels around it opened."

"Are you still in my body?" Alex asked.

"No. I am elsewhere, keeping what is left of me together. You won't find a second fighter waiting inside you."

Mingyue stepped back from the junction while one of Dorian's groups crossed behind her ice.

"Can you interfere with Arachne's hold?" she asked.

"I can help you understand what she is holding. I don't have the strength to break it for you."

The voice weakened on the last words.

Where was he? What had happened to him? Vesa had defended him when Alex doubted his intentions, certain he meant them no harm. Now that he had finally answered, she wanted to believe the hardest part was over.

His voice almost disappeared beneath Thepes's next surge of power.

She still had a dozen questions for him, but the stream from the broken street suddenly thickened. Thepes was dragging more power through the artifact, and she could barely hear her master over it.

"His body is still feeding from the remains below the city," she said. "I can see the blood rising from the breach."

"Watch what happens when he resists her."

Vesa kept her attention on Thepes as he drove his blood against the light woman's grip. The stream from the ruined street strengthened. At the same time, the pale line beneath his skin brightened, pulling his right shoulder toward her hand.

She described both movements.

"The blood from below is helping him resist," Alucard said. "The connection he opened to her web is draining him. You need to stop one and separate the other."

Alex raised his hand toward the place where the flows crossed.

"Separately," Alucard added.

"Why?" Mingyue asked.

"Where does her strand go after it leaves his arm? Follow it before you strike."

Vesa followed the pale line toward the nearest roof.

An Imperial cultivator hung beside the roof's broken edge. He clung to the stone, trying to resist the strand pulling at his chest.

Thepes pulled again, jerking the man toward the service yard. His grip broke, and he swung beneath the line.

Mingyue raised a sword, holding the small stretch of space beneath him steady. The man caught a broken ledge with one hand. Once his weight settled against it, she eased her hold, her arm trembling. The strand still entered his chest.

"There's a cultivator caught farther along it," Vesa told Alucard. "Thepes nearly pulled him off a roof."

"Then keep your cut away from the branches joining them. You have just seen what his struggle does to that man. A blow through the whole knot could do worse."

Vesa followed the line back. It crossed the blood feeding Thepes close to his chest, then branched toward the roofs. Striking him there would catch both flows and the strands beyond them.

Alex lowered the rune he had been preparing.

"Then we find the part we can cut without pulling them with it."

"Yes. Follow his own blood away from that meeting point."

Vesa turned toward the stream rising from below.

Before she could examine it, Selene called from the wall.

"Vesa, help me with him."

The man she had protected from the falling stone was trying to stand. His right leg gave way each time he put weight on it, and Selene already had another wounded vampire against her shoulder.

A red-eyed body struck the ice blocking the neighboring street.

The wall shook. More dust fell over the man on the ground.

Vesa looked toward Thepes. The artifact's trace had become clearer again, and she could hear Alucard trying to speak.

After all that interference, she could finally hear him properly.

"Wait," she told him.

She flew to the corner and pointed to a soldier who had just set down another patient.

"Under his arms. Bring him after me."

The injured man tried to stand when the soldier lifted him, but his leg folded again. Vesa hovered in front of his face while the soldier took his weight.

"Don't try to stand yet."

"I can walk."

"You can try again behind the next wall."

He stopped arguing when another impact shook the ice. The soldier lifted him clear of the ground and followed Vesa around the corner, with Selene guiding the other patient beside them.

Vesa pointed out a clear place among the cloaks. The soldier lowered his burden there, and a nurse from the shelter came over to look at the injured leg.

The man reached toward Vesa as she turned back. She settled on the stone beside his shoulder, and his fingers stopped short of her small body.

"Commander Dorian?"

"He's still holding the road."

The man craned his neck toward the corner. His boot was torn where the corpse had caught him, and dried blood marked his ankle.

"He came after us with that arm already cut."