Chapter 443: Making a Cage
The intruder’s face began contorting again as he stared at August, twisting his features in order to scare her like he did all of his other victims. This is what made him unique amongst the vampires and particularly good at his job, and it was not something he was about to stop doing just because she seemed disappointed in him.
August sighed. He was not willing to listen, and so now they were going to have to do things the hard way.
"Luna, get back!" Seth roared, horrified by the way the vampire’s face was able to change. This guy was completely different than Zagan. Zagan had a weird thing with his eyes where he could move them independently, and that was unsettling enough. But this was on an entirely different level. The vampire’s smile widened on his face, curling up near his eyes, and when he opened his mouth to smile, there were rows of razor sharp teeth within.
"Fuck, what is this guy?" Seth muttered to himself, retreating his steps to put more distance between them and moving Nedra away at the same time where she was tucked behind his back.
"I need to help her," Nedra insisted, grabbing Seth’s arm to move past him but he stopped her while another loud crash of thunder shook the sky.
"Like hell you do. Are you seeing what I’m seeing?" He exclaimed.
"He won’t stop unless we stop him," she yelled back, watching as August stared down the vampire with the Veiled churning around her.
It appeared that she was working the energy in her aura and in the surrounding forest, preparing to do something with it but she couldn’t tell what. August was such a new alyko and, despite how powerful she obviously was and the newly imprinted marks on her skin that gestured toward some kind of growing fae identity, Nedra couldn’t understand how she would know what to do in the face of a threat like this. She couldn’t leave her alone to figure it out.
The bent trees above them were creaking eerily like noisy doors from how they were swaying in the wind. Their trunks had never had to withstand any high winds like those that were now beginning to assault them with the storm overhead.
"You are not in a position to help her. Look at this place," Seth told her, glancing up at the swaying trees and flashes of lightening that peeked between them.
"Then go hide yourself, Seth," she roared at him. "It is because I fear for your safety that the island is threatening to collapse. Go stay safe somewhere in the castle so you don’t end up like Brandt."
He stared back at her, not understanding.
"Please!" She cried, and as she did the vampire lunged at August with his ugly contorted face.
Vines sprung from the ground, encircling the intruder’s arms so that he was stopped from advancing. He strained against them, breaking through the fibrous chords just as more appeared to do the same. He laughed, breaking through these as well. August brought more vines from the ground to arrest his legs and encircle his waist, and his abnormally wide mouth opened in a terrifying toothy grin.
"Will we do this for eternity?" He asked, breaking through the new set of vines that imprisoned him for more to spring up and do the same. "If this is all you have got, then I am afraid you have already lost. Shall I just wait until you exhaust yourself with this game? My strength does not fade, but I imagine yours will."
August ignored him, but he was right. She couldn’t do this forever.
"Nedra, how do you make a cage?" She yelled over her shoulder.
Nedra glared at Seth whose jaw feathered with the realization that she was needed, and then she pushed past him to arrive at August’s side.
"Everything you do in the Veiled must be done with a positive intention if it is to hold. That is the first thing you must know," she rushed, beginning to create the pillars of a cage around the intruder who continued battling the forest that was coming alive to encircle him. "Intention is the wave your creation is carried on. So don’t think, ’This monster is bad, I must trap him.’ It would need to be set in a positive way like ’This is a protective barrier that will stop harm from coming to us and to him.’"
August watched as Nedra’s structure for the cage took shape in the Veiled, rising to form the outside of a square. She was right—it was as if by looking at it, August could feel the intention Nedra had used to create the architecture of protection. It was brilliant. She couldn’t imagine the effort it would have taken to create an entire portal dimension like this one, though. And what positive intention had Nedra used to aid the will of a vampire set on entrapping alyko?
August’s eyes trailed the trees that were bent above them, searching for an unseen code that must be written within them, holding Nedra’s intention that had sprung them into being. Just then a bolt of lightening splintered one of them, creating a deafening sound that left them all temporarily blinded as the tree groaned and crashed onto the ground next to them.
Seth cursed behind them. Nedra could not do all of this. It was too much for her, but he didn’t know how to help her either, and he couldn’t go hide in the castle like she asked. There was no way he could leave her here.
August could feel Nedra beginning to weaken next to her. She took Nedra’s instruction and began sending her intention to the Veiled cage to help her construct it while the vampire continued battling vines from the ground, quiet in his patience to wait them out. These alyko would get tired, but he wouldn’t. He never would. It was only a matter of time.
Nedra’s vision was starting to blur as if she would pass out, but she squinted against it—determined to do this one final thing. If they could just get the cage built, then she could rest. The threat would be contained until they could figure out what else to do with him.
