Small successes were to be treasured and their building was filled with life and young, as it had always been meant to be, Dior thought. Charon’s family had settled into the lower floors of the building and were busy cleaning and arranging them to their liking.
The other three gargoyle triads who had travelled to fight with Dior’s triad during the up-coming battle, had been enlisted to aid the transportation of supplies to the rooftops. The landscape of the city had changed, with nearly every third rooftop alive with green, thanks to Verity’s new skill at maturing crops.
The tone had changed amongst the human population, the edge of desperation had faded now that their stomachs were full. There was a general feeling of cooperation and hope as the civilians worked to produce food as the combined human, vampire, and Other forces readied themselves to return attack.
Elior worked tirelessly with Alatar and Theo to communicate plans and distribute supplies across the world, so that when the next portals opened, the Forbidden Realm was ready to return attack.
Alatar, Theo and Verity had met under Dior and Rune’s supervision, to settle their differences. For a long time, the two men had yelled at each other whilst Verity sat and held hands with Dior watching. “Have you nothing to say?” Dior asked her, and his voice broke through Alatar and Theo’s anger, causing both men to stop and look at Verity in surprise.
“He had not changed,” Alatar said to her. “All this, his grand plan to rescue this world, is all just to position himself to be the head of the coven.”
“I know,” she told him. “But it does not change the fact that he is the one who started this, and because of it, Other and human worldwide work together with a common purpose. His reasons might be entirely selfish, but the actions are what counts.”
Theo was a wise enough man to not speak.
“How can you forgive him?” Alatar demanded. “Your mother died away from the coven, poor. He abandoned her the moment she had no further use to him because she had been disowned.”
“That my mother died away from the coven is equally the fault of the coven and her family, as it is his for taking advantage of his student.” She stood. “Theo is an awful man Alatar, and unworthy of being a father or grandfather, and I will not acknowledge him as such again, but there is no purpose in yelling at him. He cannot change the past, and he will not change who he is. Come on, Dior, I have had enough of this discussion. Have a good life, Theo. Alatar, you and Rune are expected for dinner tomorrow I am sure Rune has told you.”
Dior’s attention was drawn upwards. The sky burnt with not one, but four portals. Etienne and Blaise looked at him as they set the bags of soil that they had been carrying up the buildings down onto the rooftops, their faces grim. The humans and Others who had been gardening already flocked towards the stairwells, seeking shelter within the concrete and glass of the building.
“We have a pregnant mate,” Dior reminded his mates. “And a building heavy with kin. We will conquer, as we always have. I love you both.”
They dropped their load of soil and compost and directed their flight towards the glowing skies. As they set off towards the glow of the portals, the skies around them darkened, the winged Nephilim prisoners of war that had made peace accords with Raiden and the werewolves having gathered in the city in preparation for this first stage of retaliation.
As they drew near to the portals, the skies heavy with the winged invaders, Dior saw the greenish cast of coven spells, wedging the portals open, so that as the players of the game made their way into the realm, the prisoners of war had the opportunity to exit it.
The flash of light across the horizon was evidence of the portal caster’s attempts to close their portals, to ward off the invasion of their own people returning.
There were explosions, thick smoke billowing upward from the smoke spells cast by the coven, pushing the Nephilim invaders backwards into their own realm so that the Nephilim prisoners of war could enter.
The twelve gargoyles, and Elior’s two winged mates, were almost entirely disguised by the prisoners of war, and entered without interference. Dior saw flashes of light as coven-cast portals opened, spilling out onto the ground the black-uniformed vampire and human soldiers, and Others. He saw the ethereally beautiful incubus and succubus floating amongst them, and Nephilim scream as they came into contact with that horrifyingly deadly shield.
The Nephilim had grown accustomed to being imperious, superior, unimpeachable. Confronted with their vulnerability, they panicked. As the gargoyles attacked, along with the various ground-bound forces of the Others portalled by the warlocks from the ground into this other realm, the winged Nephilim scattered in confused terror.
Dior dove into the battle. Across his body, like the other gargoyles, he carried a satchel of spells, which he cast onto the aerie homes below him, watching the chaos unfurl as he kept a wary eye on his own triad and the three others that flew with them. The twelve gargoyles soared, impervious to spell and weapon, bowling down the opposition, clearing the path before them, winging high into the aeries and casting upon them the various spells that the witches and warlocks had prepared, smoke smells, hair spells, tar spells, feather spells, sticking spells, floating spells…
On the ground below panicked human slaves ran through the ground-level villages, snatched up by warlocks, wizards, werewolf, incubus, succubus, or whatever manner of Other or human had responded to the call and had volunteered for the battle. As hostages were taken, the Forbidden Realm attacker would withdraw through the portals.
Laughter caught his attention, and Cael dove past him, the swing of his sword casting blood over Dior’s stone skin. “Watch Cael,” he yelled to Etienne. “He will get himself killed.”
The Nephilim armed forces recalled themselves sufficiently to gather to retaliate, but the invading forces defensive magic was foreign, their organization and combat ignorant of the rules and orders that had dictated the battles of the Nephilim for centuries and the Nephilim did not know how to defeat an enemy that didn’t fight by their rules, scattering again, and many being taken as hostages as they fell.
Amongst the confusion, the twelve gargoyles dipped and soared, impervious to spell and weapon alike, an undefeatable force, slaves made enemies, the fears of their inventors realised in real time battle, as their creations proved that they had been made too well, too strong, too mighty.
“Be wary!” Ashlynn yelled at him. “The portals begin to close. It is time to withdraw!”
Dior could see the forces were withdrawing and signalled to the gargoyles to do likewise.
“Cael!” Etienne yelled.
Dior saw the winged vampire caught in battle with two others of his kind and turned to aid him. As he drew near, he saw one of the enemy drive his blade through the winged vampire, the golden-haired man throwing his head back, mouth open on a scream.
“Leave!” Dior yelled to Etienne. “I will get him! Get to safety.”
He tucked his wings tightly to his body and dove, a mad-capped crazy dive similar to that Ashlynn had once performed, the air shrieking past his stone body. He caught the golden-haired man out of the air, and opened his wings, his feet carving furrows in the ground and kicking up clods as his flight tumbled him through one of the last remaining coven portals seconds before it closed.
His roll bowled over a number of their own retreating force, and the cement of the city street sparked as he slid across it in a squeal of stone against stone.
“My mates,” he looked upwards immediately and saw Blaise and Etienne in the sky above. They had spotted him on the ground and were coming into land. He looked down at the unconscious vampire in his arms. Blood dripped off Dior’s hands. “Shit.”
Ashlynn landed next to him, her face teary, and she grabbed Cael from him, using her teeth to open the veins of her wrist and forcing his mouth open so that the blood ran from her to him. “It is not enough,” she cried out. “He is not healing.”
“Verity,” Dior exclaimed, and took the limp vampire from his mate, passing him to Etienne as the griffin changed the direction of his flight from landing to lifting, pushing off from the ground with one leg. As the griffin soared overhead, Ashlynn and Dior leapt into the air to follow.
Verity and Charon worked with the coven healers and human doctors and nurses in the local hospital, dividing the injuries up according to origin, magical or flesh wound. Power had been restored to this building in anticipation of its need.
Charon and Verity pushed through the chaos of the triage center on the ground floor to Etienne, who laid the vampire onto the floor and stepped back to Dior’s side. They watched their mate lay her hands on the injured vampire. Ashlynn knelt at Cael’s head, her teeth tearing at her wrist again, offering her blood again, a growing puddle of blood spread across the glossy tiled floor. Too much, Dior knew, even for a vampire.
A coven healer joined them. “Magical wound,” he acknowledged placing his hands on Cael on the opposite side to where Verity already worked. “A spelled weapon did this.”
Charon was fretful behind Verity. “She is already wearied,” he told Dior.
Another healer came to join them, and Verity sighed. “There we go,” she murmured. The dreadful seep of blood around the vampire seemed to still though there was so much on the man’s chest that Dior could not see if the wound had healed.
Verity pushed back from the vampire and Charon lifted her into his arms. The two other healers continued to work, but the strain had faded off their faces.
“He will live,” Verity told Ashlynn. “But he will need a lot of blood when he wakes.”
“I will see to it that he gets it,” the vampire hybrid replied.
“I will take Verity home,” Charon decided. “She has done all she can for today, anymore and I fear for the baby.”
“We will come with you,” Dior took Etienne’s hand.
“Blaise?” Charon asked anxiously, looking around for their other mate.
“He is fine, already home,” Etienne assured him.
“Home,” Verity murmured. “That sounds good. Let’s all go home and sleep.”
“Ashlynn!” Elior did not have to push through the crowds, they parted before him. The vampire was dishevelled in his suit and looked weary. Many sleepless nights, Dior thought, going over the plans for the attack. “F-k, Cael,” Elior fell to his knees beside his felled mate.
“He will be alright,” Ashlynn was openly weeping. “They saved him.”
“Thank f-k for that,” the vampire king threw his arms around her, and their heads bowed together over their mate as they clung.