Strangers In The Knight

By Cheezey

Part Six

Deadly Dawn

 

As the night breeze upon the Desert of Sinking Sands picked up around the pair of vampire and Thundercat that stood alone out there beside the Black Pyramid, LaCroix considered the tempting offer of the Thundercat that stood before him, her brown mortal eyes wide and imploring in the moonlight.  How like Fleur you are, LaCroix thought, recalling the beautiful face of his now ages gone love that he had known briefly, but unforgettably, during the Crusades of First Earth.  Fleur had wished to be brought across to be with him, but Nick had convinced LaCroix somehow that it was never meant to be, and that it would have destroyed her goodness and tarnished the very things LaCroix had cherished most about Fleur if he were to take her.  Nick had a personal stake in that judgment, for Fleur had been his mortal sister, but something in Nick’s words had rung true within the elder vampire’s soul and he had let Fleur go—and LaCroix had regretted it ever since.  Even after all those centuries LaCroix could never forget the lovely innocence of Fleur’s face, and the purity and light that had drawn him to her to begin with, qualities so unlike everything in his own dark soul.  Qualities that he saw alive in the puma before him in her love for the night-cat.

 

Perhaps it was because she was so like Fleur that he found himself willing to bring Pumyra across.  Clearly it was what the puma wanted, as it had been what Fleur herself had wanted, and what he and Nick had denied Fleur in the name of her best interests.  Fleur would have endured heartbreak much like what Pumyra was now going through had they not mesmerized the girl into forgetting LaCroix entirely—something that the vampire resented to that very day millennia later.  On that night LaCroix had made a deal with his son Nicholas that he would repay him one day for what he had done by taking a mortal from his son that Nick loved as deeply as LaCroix had loved Fleur. 

 

However, while Pumyra was clearly not someone that Nick was in love with, she was someone that his fledgling Bengali loved that deeply, and also someone that neither Bengali nor Nick wanted brought across, regardless of her own wishes in the matter.  It occurred to LaCroix that taking the lovely Pumyra and granting her wish to become immortal would not only be enjoyable for LaCroix himself, with the chance to indulge in her willing and innocent blood and have her forever bound to him, but it would also be a start at paying back his errant son for all of his betrayals as of late, with the bonus of driving a point home to the upstart night-cat.  Perhaps one day Bengali would even thank him for bringing his love to him.  LaCroix would relish that day of smug victory, even if it took a hundred years to come.

 

“So that is your offer,” LaCroix said, his eyes looking deeply into those of the Thundercat before him.  “To surrender yourself to me in exchange for my word that I will bring you over for you to be with your lover for the rest of eternity.  Is that right?”

 

“Yes,” Pumyra replied shakily.  Her decision was not what had her so anxious, rather it was the vampire in front of her that left her feeling that way.

 

LaCroix extended his hand to the Thundercat and smiled.  “Your offer is tempting indeed, my dear.  Never let it be said that the Nightcrawler has no heart.  I will not deny you what you so clearly want.  Come with me, and I will give you everything that you have asked for.”

 

Pumyra took LaCroix’s hand nervously, although without significant hesitation, and allowed him to pull her into his arms.  With a start the two of them were in the air, and then plunging downward seemingly into the dark peak of the Black Pyramid.  Frightened, Pumyra closed her eyes when she expected them to collide with the ancient structure, only to open them again when she realized that they had stopped moving and that her feet were firmly on the ground.  As she cautiously looked around she realized that she and LaCroix now stood inside the dark pyramid, alone in a chamber within.  Archaic glyphs decorated the walls from floor to ceiling and two standing torches positioned on opposite ends of the room filled the place with an eerie fire glow that played upon the large stone altar, also decorated with glyphs, in the center of the room.  Pumyra also noticed a closed golden sarcophagus against the farthest wall, not Mumm-Ra’s, and she wondered if that was where LaCroix slept during his days.

 

The puma looked up toward LaCroix, fighting an additional wave of nervousness as the realization sunk in that she was somewhere deep within the heart of lair of the Ever-Living Source of Evil himself.  “Where is Mumm—”

 

“Shhh,” LaCroix whispered, placing a finger over the Thundercat’s lips.  “He will not disturb us.  He sleeps.”

 

Suddenly LaCroix was behind Pumyra rather than in front of her, and she felt his cool hands upon her shoulders, smoothing down them almost affectionately.  She turned her head up toward him, and saw LaCroix’s smiling face looking down upon her.  “Relax, my dear.  I will be gentle with one as graceful as you,” he said softly, and tilted her neck to the side, favoring the one without her red shoulder strap.  Pumyra could feel the vampire’s fingers trace along the soft fur upon her skin until they found the clasp of her golden choker, which clicked open with just a light motion of LaCroix’s fingers.  He placed the necklace aside on the altar behind them and then lowered his head toward her neck, lightly brushing his lips against her fur.

 

Pumyra closed her eyes, her heart beating fast in both fear and exhilaration.  She had true faith, naïve perhaps, that the ancient vampire would be true to his word but now that the point of no return had been reached she found herself also experiencing the fear of the unknown.  She steadied herself with a deep breath that ended prematurely in a gasp as she felt the vampire’s hands glide gently down her arms and onto her sides.  The caress was seductive, almost like that of a lover, and she wondered briefly if LaCroix might take advantage of her, especially as his fingers brushed across the soft curves of her breasts.  They lingered there not a moment however and before his touch could cross the line to inappropriate his hands gently glided downward, across her smooth stomach, stopping at the top of her thighs.

 

The Thundercat’s breath quickened as she felt him breathe once more against her neck, draw back, and then plunge his fangs deeply into her neck.  Although she was trained as a warrior and a healer she still cried out in pain.  The pain was sharp and fleeting, however, and quickly gave way to a new and stranger sensation, one of dizzying lightheadedness filled with an almost pleasurable rush of adrenaline.  Instinctively she reached up toward the head that bit her, and as she did LaCroix used her motion to draw her into a tighter embrace, relishing the sensation of her warm and prone feminine body against him.  The vampire levitated slightly and drew her backwards and up slightly until he sat upon the edge of the stone altar and Pumyra in his lap beside him.

 

LaCroix indulged heartily in the fine vintage that was Pumyra’s willing blood, marveling at its exotic sweetness, like the finest of imported wines.  He savored her for as long as he dared, drinking deeply yet slowly, allowing himself to experience every drop of her delicious blood to the fullest.  When her breathing grew light and her body weak, LaCroix regretfully released her, and laid her out on the altar beside him in a sleeping position. 

 

Glancing around for something he might use to spill his own blood so that he could feed her and bring her across without resorting to the crass and messy business of tearing his flesh with his own fangs, he spied her golden choker unhinged upon the side of the stone altar and picked it up.  He pressed the necklace’s blunt edge to his skin and slashed it roughly, using enough force so that the metal could cut him.  When his blood began to flow he placed it gently to the weakened puma’s mouth.  “Drink, my pretty Pumyra, and you will come across into the night,” he whispered, his tone both seductive and urging.

 

Pumyra’s lips closed around the wound and LaCroix smiled as he felt her begin to lap at and taste it, her drained body instinctively taking in the vital fluid it had just lost to the vampire that fed her.  The vigor with which she drank increased with each moment and LaCroix caught himself twitching in surprise when her rougher feline tongue rubbed against his torn flesh.  LaCroix allowed her to drink to her fill from the wound and then lifted it away, reaching for her golden choker.  He brushed the remaining traces of blood upon it against her now immortal lips, and then fastened it gently around her neck, covering the puncture wounds.  LaCroix smiled satisfactorily at the sleeping puma, knowing that when she awoke again she would be fully vampiric, one of his kind, and his newest child.

 

Feeling smug and pleased, LaCroix left Pumyra where she rested and made his way to the central chamber of Mumm-Ra’s pyramid.  When he entered he found the ever-living standing in his mummy form upon the dais in front of his cauldron, his scarlet eyes ablaze with displeasure.  “You took a Thundercat here in my pyramid tonight, and yet you did not kill her when you had the chance,” the undead mage accused, his voice angry and contemptuous.  “Why?”

“Because I gave her my word that I would,” LaCroix replied simply.  “I always honor my bargains and debts, regardless with who they may be.”

 

Mumm-Ra was neither swayed nor impressed by the vampire’s sudden and rather convenient development moral character.  “She is a Thundercat—an enemy—one whom you had a bargain with me to dispose of,” he growled with displeasure.

 

LaCroix stepped forward calmly.  “And that bargain has in its way been honored as well.  In tasting her blood and bringing her across she has been transformed into a vampire, no more and no less.  She is an agent of death and destruction just like her tiger lover.  They may deny it in the short term but it is a dark spirit in them that neither will ever be free of.  It is only a matter of time before whatever Thundercat spirit lingers within her or the night-cat is extinguished and they become vampires only.  There is no need for concern, Mumm-Ra.”

 

The Ever-Living Source of Evil’s eyes blazed in barely controlled rage.  “You make my enemies immortal and then have the gall to tell me there is no need to be concerned?”

 

“And are you not immortal?” LaCroix countered.  “You have far more freedom to travel about Third Earth from your pact with the Ancient Ones than my kind does.  You are free to move about in daylight as well as night and you require no mortal blood or flesh to sustain your eternal life, yet you live and heal and linger as we do.  What can one such as you possibly fear from them?”

 

“I fear,” Mumm-Ra rasped dangerously, “that you carelessly give my enemies power.  That was never a part of our bargain, vampire.”

 

The undead mage was about to say more when the waters of the cauldron glowed in warning to let him know that he had mortal visitors.  When he saw who they were, he scowled in irritation.  “We have mortal visitors,” he informed LaCroix coldly.

 

LaCroix frowned.  “Who?”

 

The vampire got the answer to his question when Luna and Amok entered the central chamber of the pyramid. 

 

“Why have you come here, Luna?” Mumm-Ra demanded of the Lunatac leader.

 

“I am not here to bother you, Mumm-Ra.  I came to speak with your guest, LaCroix,” the short lunar woman answered.

 

An aggravated sneer crossed the mummy’s features as he looked from Luna to LaCroix.  “Aren’t you popular?”

 

LaCroix ignored Mumm-Ra’s barb and instead faced the Lunatac that had come to see him.  “Luna, isn’t it?” he asked.  When she nodded an affirmative he continued.  “What can I help you with?”

 

“I need your insight—your expertise if you will—on dealing with a rebellious vampire.”

 

Mumm-Ra let out a disgusted grumble.  “Is there any other kind?” he muttered under his breath.  “I will go and rest, and leave you two to your business.  I trust that LaCroix will show you out when you are done,” the demon priest stated, and then returned to his sarcophagus, grateful when the stone slid shut that it blocked out the shrill and grating noise of Luna’s voice.

 

LaCroix beckoned for Luna and Amok to follow him, and he led them out of the main chamber and down a corridor to another where they might continue their discussion without disturbing Mumm-Ra’s sleep.  “A rebellious vampire?  Is my Janette giving you trouble?”

 

“No, well not exactly.  It’s her doing in a way, but she has not been the problem,” Luna explained.  “She made Alluro into one of your kind.”

 

“Ah yes,” LaCroix said with a nod.  “I ran into them earlier this evening.  So he is the one being rebellious?” 

 

“Yes, very,” Luna confirmed.  “I need a way to deal with his stubbornness, LaCroix.  I can make it worth your while.”

 

A smile spread across LaCroix’s once human features.  “Tonight must be my night for good deeds,” he remarked, and regarded the lunar woman.  “Tell me all about it.”

 

* * *

 

Mumm-Ra was vaguely aware of Luna and Amok leaving his pyramid shortly before night gave way to dawn.  His rest was deceptive for he was not fully asleep in those hours, rather he was thinking that the time had indeed come for his partnership with LaCroix—along with the vampire himself if necessary—to be terminated.  The ancient vampire’s most recent hobby of entertaining of the Lunatacs on social visits was irritating enough to the demon priest, but his betrayal of deliberately giving a second Thundercat immortality was too much for him to look past.  Surely that was not part of the Ancient Ones’ plans.

 

But all plans could be changed, and as he lay there in the darkness an incredibly appealing idea took shape in his consciousness.  Allying with the vampire had been a mistake, but all mistakes could be corrected, and if his cards were played right, Mumm-Ra realized that the situation could wind up to his advantage.  The Thundercats could be weakened and the vampires—all of them—eliminated for good.

 

He let out an ominous chuckle in the darkness as he worked out the details of how to set his plan in motion.  After tonight, LaCroix will be a problem for me no longer.

 

* * *

 

It was just before daybreak when Alluro returned to the Tower of Traps.  The Lunatac vampire landed on the balcony and walked inside, securely closing the oaken doors behind him.

 

“You’re back sooner than I expected,” Janette greeted him, comfortably relaxed within the velour sheets of the suite’s bed and sipping from an ornate goblet, presumably yet another of Baron Karnor’s hoarded treasures.  “How did it go?” she asked.

 

“I left them,” Alluro said, sitting on the edge of the bed.  He picked up his psyche club, now repaired as he had replaced the orb during a final stop in his old quarters before leaving Skytomb.  He ran his purple fingers across the globe thoughtfully.  “Even after putting her in her place, Luna would not concede leadership.  She said I would have to kill her.”

 

“Did you?” Janette asked curiously.

 

Alluro shook his head.  “No.  Satisfying as it might have been, I did not.  I don’t need Skytomb.  I’m immortal now—I can go anywhere and do anything I please.  Let her keep it for the few years she has left.  I can always go back later and take it if I change my mind anyway.”

 

Janette sat up and rested her hand delicately upon the Lunatac vampire’s shoulder.  “So now that you’ve gained your freedom from her, where will you go now?”

 

“I was hoping that I might stay here with you, at least for a short while,” Alluro said, offering his vampire mistress a charming smile.

 

Janette smiled back at her fledgling and pulled him into an affectionate embrace.  “As I told you before I brought you across, my doors will always be open to you,” she whispered, and the two of them nestled comfortably into the sheets together to spend the long day.

 

* * *

 

Outside Baron Karnor’s tower, at the edge of the forest below, two warrior maidens watched Alluro land upon its high balcony and walk inside, closing the doors behind him.  The pair of scouts consisted of Thelia the healer and Eliza, the one who LaCroix had bitten earlier that night.  Eliza’s strength had returned to a passable level within a few hours, between the herbal elixir she had been given and the fact that LaCroix had not taken as much blood as he would have had he been deliberately feeding rather than fighting.  Additionally, Eliza’s recovery was partly fueled by emotional drive.  That last, and very personal, attack upon the people of the Tree Top Kingdom was for her the final straw.  She would see to it that all of the vampires burned, no matter what it took. 

 

She had asked to be allowed to scout the place she suspected that some of the night creatures nested in, the dark and trap-riddled stone tower deep in the forest.  The place had always been one that the warrior maidens avoided going into or near, after having had scouts and explorers of their tribe disappear there over the years, and in the past weeks it had developed an even more dangerous feel to it—perhaps because the majority of the attacks from the vampires came from the scouting outposts on the borders of the Tree Top Kingdom nearest Karnor’s tower.

 

Thelia had voiced an objection to the injured warrior maiden going alone, but it was clear that she would go whether she was told to stay or not, so the healer volunteered to go along.  She had felt a sick, frightened, and angry feeling when she saw the Lunatac briefly upon the balcony, landing in a way that no mortal could without benefit of one of the flying machines that his kind and the other foreign races to Third Earth had.  “You were right,” Thelia told Eliza with a dark glare at the structure.  “That place is a haven for their evil.  That must be where they hide from the daylight.”

 

“We can make it a trap for their death tomorrow night once they leave to feed,” Eliza replied determinedly.  “We can get some of the fermented grain and fruit ales and soak the brush around the base, so long as we watch our step.  Then we can climb up and drench whatever is in the room top, the section where they live, and set it on fire with a blazing arrow.”

 

“Yes,” Thelia agreed.  “One of our skilled archers could reach that window on the end from that tree,” she pointed to a tall oak, “so long as it wasn’t blocked.”

 

Eliza nodded.  “Whoever prepares the top room can get that ready.”

 

Thelia put her arm around the weaker warrior maiden and nodded purposefully.  “Come on.  Let’s get back to the Tree Top Kingdom and make our preparations.  We will have to work swiftly once the sun sets.”

 

* * *

 

Bengali and Nick’s search in the waning hours of the night proved fruitless in finding Pumyra.  The two vampires had checked all the places they could think of, using their natural vampire speed and flight to their advantage, while the other Thundercats had contacted and visited the villages of the Third Earth peoples they were still on friendly terms with to see if any of them had seen Pumyra.  All of the leads turned up cold and soon the sun began to rise.  Regretfully the night-cat and his human vampire companion were forced to return to the shelter of the Tower of Omens to wait out the daylight hours.  They spent the day restless inside.  They passed the time by doing what work they could on repairs to the vehicles in the hangar to pass the time, periodically checking in with the others for any word from Pumyra.  There was none.

 

When the sun finally set with still no word on the missing puma, the two vampires took to the skies once again to look for her.  As they flew over the forest past Karnor’s tower, Nick grabbed Bengali’s hand and guided him to land on the balcony beside him.  As they touched down, the tiger vampire turned to the elder one questioningly.  “Karnor’s tower?” he asked with a curious growl.  “You think Pumyra is trapped in this forsaken place?”

 

“No,” Nick said with a shake of his head.  “But someone I’m connected to is—Janette.”

 

He raised the latch on the high door and stepped inside with Bengali behind him.  The room inside was lit with candlelight and Janette lay seemingly asleep on the bed alone.  “Nicola,” the female vampire spoke, apparently not as asleep as her appearance would have them believe.  “And Bengali?  This is an unexpected surprise.”

 

“I sensed you,” Nick greeted her.  “So this is where you live now?  Not with the Lunatacs?”

 

“Keeping company with mortals is one thing, living with them is another,” the vampiress replied, sitting up.  “So what brings you on this social visit?  I had not expected you for weeks at least given how we parted company last time.”

 

“Pumyra is missing,” Bengali informed her with a low growl.

 

Janette eyed the tiger indifferently.  “And?” she prompted.

 

“We were hoping that you had seen her,” Nick replied.

 

The vampiress gave Nick a suspicious, if not slightly amused look.  “Are you asking if I’ve seen her or if I fed on her?”

 

Bengali narrowed his eyes and snarled.  “For your sake, you had better not.”

 

“Such rudeness, especially after barging into my home,” Janette snapped haughtily.  “Even if I had fed on her—which I did not—what can you do about it?” she challenged.

 

Nick gave the angry tiger an imploring look to calm down and then turned back to Janette.  “Janette, please, if you’ve seen her, tell me.  We had an argument with her earlier today and I’m worried about her.  I’m afraid she’s going to do something foolish.  I know you don’t care about my mortal friends, but I would like to think you still cared about me at least.”

 

Janette sighed and stood.  “I told you I have not seen her, Nicola, what more do you want?  What is it you’re so worried she will do, anyway?”

 

“Go near the warrior maiden kingdom, for one.  Their Queen has declared war on all the vampires and anyone keeping company with them, including the Thundercats—thanks to some vampires feeding off of them constantly,” Nick explained to the vampire woman.

 

“Pumyra also asked us both to change her into a vampire before she left,” Bengali added.  “That was what the fight was about.”

 

“I see,” Janette said, leaning against the bedpost.  “And you two think I might have found her and obliged her after you turned her down?”

 

“Now that’s something I would have liked to see if it did happen,” Alluro’s smooth voice remarked from the doorway on the far end of the room.  The psi vampire had a silver necklace in his hand with a crafted pendant jewel on the end, one of the many lovely pieces of the former Baron Karnor’s collection that he had been admiring when he had heard the voices in the main chamber of the suite and had gone to investigate.  He twirled it in casual amusement in his hand. 

 

Both Bengali and Nick eyed the vampire Lunatac dubiously as he walked in and stood at Janette’s side.  “So it’s true.  You are one of us now,” Bengali said with a disgusted growl.

 

Alluro grinned smugly.  “One night as an immortal and my legend already precedes me.  What a wonderful start to immortality.”

 

“What about you?  Did you encounter Pumyra?” Nick demanded.

 

“So sorry to disappoint you, but no.  When I was not at Skytomb last night I was with Janette, and my evening was delightfully free of Thundercats,” he informed Nick coldly.  As he finished his sentence he circled an arm around the vampiress’ shoulders to affix the jewel he had retrieved from the collection to see how it looked on her, as it seemed to him too lovely a thing to let sit unseen in a dusty treasure collection and far too delicate and feminine for himself.  He was pleased to see it suited Janette quite well.  “But why would the two of you be against changing your little puma friend into what you are, anyway?”

 

“That would be Nicola’s naïve morality acting up again,” Janette pointed out to Alluro, admiring the trinket her fledgling had placed upon her.  “He’s brainwashed his tiger with the same guilt that he’s wallowed in for, what is it, centuries now?”

 

Bengali glared hatefully at the vampire pair opposite him and Nick.  “I don’t want to watch someone as kind-hearted and gentle as Pumyra become a killer.  Not that I would expect someone like you to understand that, Alluro.  You had no shred of decency in you before you became a vampire.”

 

Alluro laughed heartily at that remark.  “Sticks and stones won’t break my bones, but your insults will certainly entertain me,” he mocked.

 

Nick let out an exasperated sigh and took hold of Bengali’s arm.  “I guess we found out all we needed to know.  We’ll leave you to your—whatever,” the vampire man said with quiet aggravation, and flew off into the night.  Bengali wordlessly left behind the elder vampire, departing with only one last glare and growl before he took off after Nick.

 

* * *

 

Down below Karnor’s tower in the trees, several warrior maidens including Eliza, Thelia, Almika, and Queen Willa’s sister Nayda, were scattered in preparation for an ambush.  During the course of the day the warrior maidens had refined their plan into two parts—the original idea to trap and burn any vampires that slept within the tower at daybreak by setting it ablaze, and a new one suggested by the healer Thelia to try to capture some of the blood-drinkers during the night and stake them out to be burned by the sunrise, held in place by crosses and garlic, and then once they were gone to set the old stone tower ablaze to kill off any that remained.  Thelia had suggested the new plan, telling the others that the lore was such that a regular fire only might kill the vampires, for if one was old he or she might somehow survive it.  The sun however, she had said, was a purifier of their evil and would fry even the oldest of vampires to ash.  The other warrior maidens praised the healer’s wisdom and readily agreed to the new plan.  Now they were prepared to carry it out, and all that they needed to do was wait.

 

The warrior women watched the balcony starting at sundown.  They had seen Nick and Bengali arrive and a short while later saw them leave.  That led the warrior maidens to the conclusion that while Karnor’s tower was indeed a vampire nest, some of their kind still lived among the Thundercats.  Those would be the ones they had to try hardest to catch that night, although they intended to do their best to hunt and capture them all. 

 

Not long after Nick and Bengali left, Janette and Alluro took off into the night to go about their own hunting.  They had not planned to dine on warrior maidens that evening, and flew off to the east to sate their bloodlust on the vital fluid of the Wollos instead.  Once they were gone, half of the gathered party of warrior maidens carefully scaled the tower, mindful of the legends that it was a tomb and an accursed place, and cautiously entered the top suite.  They soaked all of the bedding as well as anything damp or wooden in fermented grain and fruit juices, and spilled the oil from the extinguished braziers across the floor.  One of the warriors pulled the top window to the tower open so that a flaming arrow could be sent through it onto the bed at the opportune moment.  Meanwhile the remainder of the vampire hunting team worked upon the tower’s base, dousing the brush, vines, and sticks against the building with the contents of their own flasks.  Before long their work was complete, and the ultimate trap for the new inhabitants of the legendary Tower of Traps was set. 

 

Once they were finished with Karnor’s tower, the warrior maidens returned to their borders where several teams of scouts and warriors were gathered, armed for the sole purpose of hunting and capturing the undead.  The warriors had arrows tied with garlic as well as ones dipped in oil that could be set aflame before firing.  The ones who were not the best marksmen carried torches—for the archers to light their fire arrows quickly and easily—and wooden crosses to hold the night creatures at bay.  Each of the women wore a wreath of garlic around their neck and their packs contained stakes and rope as well.  Soon they disbursed into the woods to hunt the night creatures as viciously as they had been hunted themselves in the prior weeks.

 

The strong scent of humans out uncharacteristically far into the wilderness proved to be too great a lure for the vampire pair of Janette and Alluro to resist.  Although they had fed upon a trio of traveling Wollos earlier, they were hardly so full that they could not indulge in some fresh human blood, and as they neared the woods to the south of Karnor’s tower, they chose that spot to land and hunt.

 

“I wonder what it is that has them spread out like this,” Janette mused as she and Alluro began to move through the trees, following the scent of the nearby humans.

 

“Perhaps a ceremony or the like,” Alluro theorized.  “The warrior maidens are very primitive, and I think their spiritual beliefs have something to do with nature and such.  They might be out taking part in a rite or something along those lines.”  As he finished his sentence, he heard a sharp whistle almost like an animal’s cry nearby.

 

Janette smiled predatorily.  “It should make them easy to pick off.”

 

Alluro mirrored the elder vampiress’ smile.  “Indeed.”

 

“The only ones to be ‘picked off’ tonight will be you,” a harsh female voice, that of the warrior maiden Eliza, spat hatefully as her flaming arrow struck Janette in the side.  Both vampires spun around, fangs bared, and saw several more armed warrior maidens emerge from the trees around them.  Alluro reached to pull the arrow out of Janette only to find one lodged in his leg before he could react.

 

“How does it feel, vampire, to be the one hunted for a change?” the warrior Almika demanded coldly.  “To be stalked, captured, and preyed upon the way you have upon our people?”

 

Growling in pain and his features reverted vampiric like those of his mistress, Alluro pulled the arrow out of his leg, wincing at the pain of the burn.  “You are only pathetic mortals,” he snarled back, drawing on his hypnotic powers.  He would have fought them, had there not been so many, but it seemed that suddenly there was at least fifteen of the angry female humans armed and converging upon them.  “You stand no chance against us.  You will scatter and run like the vermin you are.”

 

“You can not warp all of our minds,” the healer’s apprentice Tarasil, one of the maidens armed with a torch and cross, spoke up.  She held out the ancient talisman to them with full faith in its power to ward them off. 

 

Janette and Alluro backed up slightly and realized they were surrounded.  The sky, Janette told him telepathically.  We must fly out of here now.

 

As soon as the two vampires attempted to rise into the air, although to the warrior maidens who had only human vision to track their movements with it was before they even lifted, Thelia—bearing only a torch and garlic—gave the signal for them to fire their garlic arrows.  Alluro and Janette felt the sting of thirty or so arrows collectively fired into them, the oils and pieces of the offending herb stinging and burning their skin and the tender flesh underneath on contact, draining their powers and overwhelming their strength.

 

“What an incredible plant garlic is,” Tarasil said, advancing on the weakened pair of vampires.  “It has so many uses.  It flavors food, it heals, and it poisons your unnatural kind slowly and painfully.  Truly a gift from the good spirits.”  A couple of the stronger warrior maidens set their bows aside and moved in on the pair of weak, but still struggling vampires and began to bind them with ropes—garlic rubbed, much to their grim realization.

 

“Enjoy your last night alive,” Eliza said hatefully to them.  “At least we are giving you the few hours’ courtesy to ponder your fate that you did not have the decency to give any of our people that you killed.”

 

“You can never kill us,” Janette hissed defiantly.

 

“We are immortal,” Alluro added with arrogance that did not convey the less than confident feeling of fear welling up within his supposedly immortal body.

 

Eliza’s dark brown eyes narrowed.  “Maybe we can’t… but the sun can.  Brilliant daylight and purifier of demons, it will send you to the blazing pits of damnation in which you belong.”  The other warrior maidens nodded in stern agreement, and they took their bound vampire prisoners away into the night.

 

* * *

 

It was two hours after sunset that LaCroix went to see how the puma he had brought across earlier was doing.  In his hands he held a chalice filled with blood, the blood of an unfortunate Tabbot who had been in the wrong place at the wrong time.  “But at least it was not one of Mumm-Ra’s traders this time,” LaCroix chuckled to himself as he carried it in and set it beside the sleeping puma.

 

LaCroix drew his cool fingers along her cheek, tracing the lines where light and dark brown met in the soft skin.  “Awaken, my dear.  It is time to feed.”

 

Pumyra stirred at the touch of the vampire who had brought her across.  She blinked and opened her eyes, as if trying to make sense of her surroundings, and then she saw LaCroix standing over her.  The details of what had happened came back to her, and as she sat up she realized—with more surprise than she expected—that LaCroix had kept his bargain and brought her over.  “LaCroix…” she murmured, looking around groggily, “am I—?”

 

“Look around the chamber with your new eyes and tell me,” the ancient vampire replied with a smile. 

 

Pumyra did as he instructed, and a look of wide-eyed wonder filled her still rather innocent, at least in his jaded eyes, features.  “It’s—it’s amazing,” she said softly.

 

LaCroix eyed her intently.  “And how do you feel?”

 

The puma frowned for a moment and then met the elder vampire’s gaze.  “Thirsty.”

 

“I thought you might be,” LaCroix answered, and gestured to the chalice beside her on the altar.  “Drink.”

 

Pumyra turned and picked it up, sniffing delicately at what was inside.  Her hunger and thirst was incredible, and even though she knew logically that the thick red fluid within it was blood, the aroma of it called to her so strongly that she drank it down quickly and without hesitation.  Like all vampires did when they first tasted it, she found it warm and thick and not only satisfying but rather pleasant to the taste.  When she was finished, LaCroix took the chalice from her and set it aside. 

 

“Well done, and with such grace,” LaCroix praised her, lifting her to her feet.  “Welcome to the night, Pumyra.  As promised, it is the first of an endless bounty of them before you.”

 

* * *

 

“I have such a hard time believing that Pumyra could come to a place like this,” Bengali remarked, taking in the imposing and evil sight of the Black Pyramid for the first time in his sharpened immortal vision.  It looked—and felt—more evil than ever to him.

 

“So do I, but it’s the one place we haven’t looked, and it’s a place that we will likely find LaCroix,” Nick said, shaking his head.  He did not want to believe that Pumyra would have been foolish enough to risk going to such a place to seek immortality, but there was only one way to put their fears to rest, and that was to check.  “Do you think Mumm-Ra will attack us?”

 

Bengali frowned.  “It’s possible, but we’re both vampires.  That makes us as ever-living as he is.”

 

“Except for his magic,” Nick agreed.  “Regardless, we should tread carefully.  Do you know the way in?”

 

“I believe Mumm-Ra usually flies in through the top.  Most of the times the Thundercats have gone in, it’s either been through the pyramid wall in the Thundertank, or through the tunnels underneath.  But I don’t know that way, and Lion-O once described it like a maze,” Bengali explained.

 

Nick looked up at the dark sky and the supernatural sparks of magic lightning above the structure.  “Let’s try the skylight then, or whatever his equivalent is.  If we can get in by flight then we might as well do so.”

 

Bengali nodded to the elder vampire in agreement, and the two of them took off into the air.  Although Bengali had flown over the Black Pyramid before in his mortal days, he saw that its peak was open in a way that he could explain as visible only to vampire eyes.  Unbeknownst to the tiger, the reason for that was that it was a magical barrier that kept the top open but closed to the elements and unwanted mortal entrance.  That opening was magically attuned to allow Mumm-Ra and his pet, Ma-Mutt, to be able to come and go at all times, and it had recently been adjusted with his magic to grant the dark souls of vampires entrance into his evil domain as well.  Of course, Mumm-Ra had never intended for any vampire other than LaCroix to use it, and until that night none had.

 

The pair of visiting vampires flew down through the magical opening and found themselves in the central chamber of Mumm-Ra’s pyramid.  To their surprise, it was empty—the Ever-Living Source of Evil was not there.  His sarcophagus was closed, and a sleeping Ma-Mutt rested at its base, protecting the magical source of his master’s power, but he did not feel any threat in the presence of the two vampires in the chamber itself.  His master had instructed him to attack vampires only if they did his home any damage while he was away.

 

“LaCroix!” Nick called out, his tone demanding and forceful.  “Answer me if you’re here!”

 

Within moments the ancient vampire appeared in the dark archway that led down the hall to the chamber in which he had been sleeping.  “I thought I sensed your presence nearby, Nicholas,” he greeted his vampire son.  “And you brought the night-cat with you, I see,” he continued with a nod of acknowledgement to Bengali.  “I had a feeling I might be seeing you two this evening—if not for me, then for my guest.”  He ended his statement with a complacent grin that evolved into a dark chuckle.

 

Bengali felt a rush of rage at the ancient vampire’s smug undertone.  “You have her!” the tiger vampire accused in a feral roar.  “If you’ve hurt her, I’ll tear you apart!”

 

“I’m fine, Bengali,” Pumyra’s soft voice sounded from the shadows behind LaCroix.  She stepped forward, emerging from behind the eldest vampire, and approached Bengali.  “He didn’t hurt me.”

 

“Are you all right?” Bengali said rushing over to the puma and pulling her into a hug.

 

“She’s never been healthier,” Nick remarked, shaking his head with a mixture of relief and regret.  He had picked up on the change within Pumyra as soon as she had walked into the chamber and knew her to be one of them.  He was fairly sure that Bengali would have noticed it as well if he had not been so preoccupied with worry.  

 

“What do you mean—?” Bengali asked, and then looked into Pumyra’s eyes.  He then figured out what Nick had realized moments before.  “No,” he gasped sadly.  “He didn’t… you didn’t—”

 

“I did,” Pumyra said, taking Bengali’s hands into hers and squeezing them affectionately.  “I had to.  There just wasn’t another way.”

 

Bengali pulled her close to him and hugged her tightly, feeling both touched and warmed by the true depth of Pumyra’s love and saddened at what she had lost to hold onto it.  “We could have found another way,” he murmured as he rested his face against her silken brown and white hair.  “I love you, Pumyra, by the gods of Thundera more than anything, but you didn’t have to do this.”

 

“Why, LaCroix?” Nick demanded of the elder vampire. 

 

LaCroix narrowed his eyes.  “Because she asked, Nicholas.  I did not take her against her will, if that’s what you’re riled up about,” he said contemptuously.  “Though it would have served you right if I had.”

 

“You’ll never stop, will you?” Nick growled angrily.  “The interfering, the meddling—you toy with the lives of these people just to get to me, just to pull me back in.  I’ve left you, LaCroix.  I left you years ago and with each manipulation you drive me further away.”

 

“I will never stop because you will never learn, Nicholas.  You belong with me, not with the mortals, but with your kind.  I think that even you believe that deep down, or else you never would have brought that tiger of yours across, you would have let him die because mortality is so precious.  I would venture a guess that you never wanted true mortality so much as you just wanted to spite me and leave.”

 

Nick glared at the ancient vampire in disgust.  “It’s not always about you, LaCroix, and that is but only one of the many reasons I wish to live my life away from you, and why even Janette keeps her distance these days.  Your children are grown, LaCroix, let us go and move on!”

 

“You will never be rid of me, Nicholas,” LaCroix said firmly.  “Never.”

 

“Nick, please,” Pumyra said, still held tightly in Bengali’s arms.  “LaCroix is telling the truth.  I came to him.”

 

Nick sighed at his well-meaning puma friend.   “He used you, Pumyra.  He used your wish to come across to hurt me, and probably to hurt Bengali too.  I know it’s what you thought you wanted, and it’s too late to change it now, but please don’t let him fool you into thinking that he did it for you because he cared.”

 

“I haven’t been fooled,” Pumyra said indignantly.  “I went into this with my eyes open.”

 

Bengali sighed and stroked her silken brown and white mane gently.  “Nick is right, what’s done is done… let’s just get you out of here and away from this miserable place.  All right?”

 

Nick joined Pumyra and Bengali’s side after a parting glare at LaCroix.  “I imagine you’re hungry.  Let us take you into the woods to get you something to sustain you.”

 

LaCroix chuckled in amusement.  “She may not like that animal blood vinegar you two call sustenance after I spoiled her palate with Tabbot.”

 

Pumyra blinked, feeling a rush of guilt.  “You killed a Tabbot because of me?”

 

“You didn’t really think that what he gave you wasn’t the blood of a sentient, did you?” Bengali asked gently.

 

“I—I guess I didn’t think about it.  I just drank,” she said sadly.

 

Nick patted her reassuringly on the back and did his best to ignore LaCroix.  “Don’t beat yourself up over it.  What’s done is done, and you didn’t kill the Tabbot.  You don’t have to kill to survive, you can do what we do.”

 

“Oh, goody,” LaCroix said sarcastically.  “Misguiding another young one from the start.”  The ancient vampire caught Pumyra’s gaze.  “It would seem our bargain has been completed, my dear.  I will, as agreed, leave you to your lover and with Nicholas if that is your wish.  If you should come to the wise conclusion that their survivalist lifestyle is not for you, I will be more than happy to show you where to find finer cuisine such as Tabbots, Tuskas, warrior maidens—”

 

Bengali growled angrily at the elder vampire.  “You and the others are the reason the warrior maidens have declared war on our kind and extended it to the Thundercats.”

 

“What?” Pumyra echoed in alarm.

 

“It’s true,” Nick told her sadly.  “Their Queen feels that all vampires are threats and that anyone harboring them, or sympathizing with them—namely, the Thundercats—must be one too.  You’ll have to avoid the Tree Top Kingdom and its borders from now on, or at least until Lion-O gets them calmed down.”

 

“Wow… I had no idea,” Pumyra said with a regretful shake of her head.

 

“Come on, let’s get out of here and find you something to feed on,” Bengali said to Pumyra and Nick, still snarling lightly in LaCroix’s direction.  “There’s no need for us to remain in a place like this.” 

 

Both Nick and Pumyra nodded agreeably to the tiger vampire’s suggestion.  Nick was first to take off and Bengali lifted after him.  Pumyra paused for a brief moment and faced LaCroix.  “Thank you for helping me,” she told him quietly, feeling that she owed him that much.  Regardless of his motives, he had kept his word to her and given her what she had asked for, and she saw no need to be rude to him after he had extended her that much courtesy.  She hardly would regard the undeniably evil vampire as a friend, but it did not sit well to treat him with the contempt of an enemy at that time either.  Before LaCroix could reply however, the puma vampire flew off behind Bengali and Nick.

 

LaCroix glanced upward, watching the pair of Thundercat vampires and his errant son fly away into the night.  “You are quite welcome my dear,” LaCroix murmured into the darkness.  “But I do hope you don’t mind if I keep an eye on you to be certain that they are taking proper care of my newest child.”  He stood there for a few deliberate moments, giving them enough time to get ahead where they might not notice him following, and then lifted off into the starry sky above in curious pursuit.

 

It did not take long for LaCroix to figure out in which direction they went.  The woods best for hunting game south of the Tree Top Kingdom, and that was where the three other vampires went.  LaCroix noticed that they stayed miles from the warrior maidens’ borders, however he still detected a curiously strong scent of humans out and about in the woods of the area.  That was unusual, for at that time of night most of the primitive women remained in their encampment, especially in recent weeks due to the threat of the vampires.  He landed a short distance from where Nick, Bengali, and Pumyra had descended beneath the trees, intent on watching them from a distance.  The human scent remained strong in the air seemingly all around him.  “The woods are infested with prime hunting on this night,” he murmured.  “I wonder if I should catch one for myself.”

 

The answer to LaCroix’s rhetorical question came with the sharp and stinging sensation of a garlic arrow being lodged in his back, between his shoulder blades.  The vampire whirled around in pained outrage and saw his attacker—or rather, attackers.  Five angry warrior maidens faced him armed with an assortment of garlic and fire arrows and glared at him with deadly intent.  LaCroix started to rise into the air, but they fired, catching the ancient vampire by surprise and knocking him to the ground in an assault of pain.  He clutched angrily at the arrows, tearing them out as best he could, but they fired another round into him.  A sixth warrior maiden lassoed a garlic-rubbed rope around his neck and tugged while one of the archers set her bow down and drew a cross to hold him in place.  “Your nights of hunting our people are over, demon,” she said coldly, while a seventh warrior maiden, the Queen’s sister Nayda, stepped forward with another rope and began to bind his wrists and feet with similar ropes.

 

“One more vampire captured, and one of the worst offenders of the bunch.  This one has been seen before.  Even the Thundercat vampires despise him,” Nayda remarked, eyeing LaCroix with unbridled contempt.

 

Struggling rather helplessly within his bonds and beneath the repulsion of the cross, LaCroix hissed in fury.  “Others?  What others?”

 

“The woman and the Lunatac will die at dawn alongside you.  You will not meet the end of your evil and unnatural life alone,” Nayda informed him, and then turned to the hunting party.  “Take him to the others.”

 

* * *

 

In the midst of tracking the movements of a buck, Nick frowned as he heard a cry of pain that sounded somewhat familiar to him.  The other vampires heard it as well but could not place it.  “Nick?  What is it?” Pumyra asked the formerly human vampire with a concerned look upon her features.

 

“Did you hear that?” Nick asked, frowning.  Suddenly he was struck with a disturbing realization—first that LaCroix was nearby and secondly that he was in pain.  He stood there stunned for a moment, not entirely sure how to react to that mixed news.

 

“I heard something, but I don’t know what it was,” Bengali agreed.

 

Pumyra paused thoughtfully, and then she felt what he did as well.  While she was essentially in her infancy as far as vampire experience went, she too was one of LaCroix’s children and had just been very close with him—the one who had brought her across—only hours before.  “It’s LaCroix, isn’t it?” she asked Nick.  “Something has hurt him.”

 

“Something with taste then,” Bengali muttered with a scowl.

 

Pumyra glanced nervously in the direction from which the cry came.  “Should we go and help him?”

 

“You should worry about who might help you, blood-suckers,” the angry voice of a warrior maiden, that one a torch and cross-bearer called Kanra, snarled hatefully at the vampire trio.  A barrage of garlic and fire arrows pelted the ambushed Thundercat vampires and ally, causing them to cry out in pain and flail against the assault. 

 

“Stop!” Pumyra screamed.  Her features, as well as those of Nick and Bengali, had reverted vampiric naturally from the adrenaline of being attacked, but her voice was not one of threat but pleading defense.  “We never attacked you!”

 

“Then what were you doing in our woods in the middle of the night?” Kanra retorted, holding out the cross to hold them back.

 

“Hunting animals,” Bengali told them. 

 

“We don’t want to fight you,” Nick added, and looked meaningfully at the woman who seemed to be the leader of the group.  He drew on his innate mesmerizing abilities.  “We aren’t here to hurt you.  Let us go.”

 

“Do not listen to them, their voices hold the sweet lure of lies to save themselves,” Willa’s voice came from behind.  The Queen of the Tree Top Kingdom stepped forward, wielding a flaming arrow that she shot directly into the back of Nick’s neck, knocking him flat against the ground, growling in pain.  Pumyra scrambled to pull it out while the other warriors converged upon them with garlic-rubbed ropes.  “You Thundercats were warned to stay away, if any of you are indeed still Thundercats and not night creatures.  It seems the two of you we captured are at least.”

 

Bengali faced Willa with an imploring look.  “Please, Queen Willa—the Thundercats have never been anything but allies to you!  I swear upon the Code of Thundera that none of us ever attacked any of your people!”

 

“Liar!” Kanra shouted, and shot Bengali in the shoulder with a garlic arrow.  “You were caught near our woods hunting for your prey.  You were after our blood!”

 

“Willa, please,” Pumyra begged.  “Listen to us!”

 

Willa glared coldly and sternly at the trio.  “I will listen to nothing from any of you.  The words of the undead are not to be trusted.  If you are as honorable as you say then whatever god you follow will show you mercy when you meet it at dawn.  Scouts, bring them to the others!”  With that the warrior maiden Queen marched ahead and the bound vampires were taken to the place intended for their blazing sunrise execution.

 

* * *

 

The site marked for the vampires’ fiery demise was a field a few miles southeast of the Tree Top Kingdom.  The land was hilly, and the particular hill selected for the task faced eastward to meet the rising sun fully.  A few hours had passed and dawn grew ominously nearer.  Already staked out in heavy ropes of rubbed garlic, their strength sapped by the arrow-given injections of the vampire poison, and laying helplessly beside warrior maiden scouts bearing crosses above them were the first two vampires captured, Alluro and Janette. 

 

LaCroix was brought in an hour or so after the vampiress and psi had been secured, and even in such dire circumstances LaCroix was smug and confident.  His arrival both boosted and lowered the spirits of the other two, for it meant one less vampire to possibly come and rescue them—and the only non-Thundercat of their kind—but his sarcasm and fire gave both of the other captives renewed breath for their own arrogance in the face of possible death. 

 

When the remaining three vampires were hauled in, tied up, and staked out beside them however, their spirits all sank a bit while their anger rose.

 

“So, Nicola, your puma friend became one of us after all,” Janette remarked as the warrior maidens tied Pumyra in place.  “What a shame she picked this night for it.”

 

“You’re making a big mistake,” Pumyra said, wincing as the garlic ropes burned her young immortal flesh like a light application of an irritating acid.  “We never would have hurt you.”

 

LaCroix turned his head in Pumyra’s direction.  “I am sorry to see that they captured you, my dear, but you see they—like most mortals—are run by fear and hatred.  They cannot be reasoned with.  That is why it means nothing to hunt them.  They are no better than animals themselves.”

 

“Shut your foul mouth!” Eliza, who had remained with the captives since Janette and Alluro’s capture, snapped angrily at the bound LaCroix.  “You may call us animals, but at least we are part of nature—not something within it that can only be created by surrendering one’s soul to the dark spirits.”

 

Thelia the healer came up behind Eliza and rested a hand on her shoulder.  “That arrogant night-crawler is hardly worth the breath you waste on him.  Do not let him upset you.”

 

Once Bengali, Pumyra, and Nick were secured, Kanra and Willa approached Eliza.  “That should be all of them, I think,” Kanra said, surveying her work.  “Six of the foul creatures.”

 

Willa nodded, a serious expression on her features.  “It is good that we are getting rid of them now.   They are multiplying.  Days ago there were but four.  They seem to be spreading their unnatural condition to infect others and turn them to their evil.”

 

“Well my Queen, their deaths should at least put a dent in it, if not end it altogether,” Eliza said with a satisfied smile.

 

Nayda, who had stayed after delivering LaCroix to the care of the executioners, also gave a nod of agreement.  “Those we lost can now look down on us in pride to see how we’ve avenged their deaths.”

 

“Vengeance?  What vengeance are you getting by killing all of us?  I never killed any of you!  Bengali and Nick never killed any of you!  We were your friends!”

 

Willa narrowed her eyes harshly at the Thundercat.  “No vampire is a friend of ours.  Your kind has proven that to be true.”

 

“Killing us makes you no better than them,” Nick growled, struggling fruitlessly against his binds.  “And even killing them only sinks you to their level.”

 

Alluro let out a bitter laugh.  “Give it up, Nick, you can’t reason with primitive barbarians such as these.”

 

“Barbarians are we?” Eliza howled in outrage at the Lunatac.  “This from the one who killed my warrior sister nearly in front of my own eyes and boasted about it!”  She threw her cross talisman against his chest, burning the flesh on contact.  Alluro wrenched in pain as the artifact burned into his vampiric flesh and thrashed until it fell to the ground beside him.

 

Janette snarled at the woman.  “It’s easy for you to be tough when you have your enemy burned, weakened, and tied up, isn’t it?”

 

“Destroying what they fear, how very mortal indeed,” LaCroix sneered contemptuously.

 

“We will see when the sun rises how ‘immortal’ you vampires are, won’t we?” Willa challenged coldly.

 

“Yes we will, Queen Willa,” Thelia said, standing proudly beside the warrior maiden leader before casting LaCroix a superior glance.  “You shouldn’t have messed with us, LaCroix.  You should never have messed with me.”  The human healer then let out a deep and evil laugh, her eyes taking on a decidedly evil red glow as she did so.

 

LaCroix’s eyes went wide with shock.  “What the… who are you?”

 

Thelia stretched out her hands to the sky, and a brilliant flash of supernatural light surrounded her body.  When it dimmed an all too familiar form stood before the party of six bound vampires and the warrior maidens that had captured them.

 

“Mumm-Ra!” the vampires echoed in horrified unison.

 

“In my truly immortal flesh,” the Ever-Living Source of Evil greeted the vampires he loathed with a sneer.

 

LaCroix was beyond anger and indignation and well into rage.  His features were fully vampiric, and he thrashed about in his garlic-laden binds with incredible strength considering his circumstances.  “You betrayed me!  We had an alliance!”

 

Mumm-Ra’s scarlet eyes blazed furiously as he faced the ancient vampire.  “No, LaCroix, it is you that betrayed me.  Our alliance was severed the moment you brought that Thundercat across into immortality.  During the course of our short alliance, vampire, you were nothing but a problem to me, and Mumm-Ra always deals with his problems.  At dawn you will be destroyed, LaCroix.  Say farewell to your long ‘eternal’ existence,” he finished with a sneer.

 

“You can not destroy me so easily, Mumm-Ra,” LaCroix countered coldly.  “Neither you nor your human toys.”

 

The demon priest only laughed at the vampire’s show of bravado, and looked up into the eastern sky, changing to pinkish purple with the impending dawn.  “A beautiful sunrise, is it not?  I can feel in the air that it will be a clear, gorgeous, and very bright day.  I think the temperature may be a tad warm though,” Mumm-Ra said, giving LaCroix a mock look of concern.  “In fact, you might just call it a ‘scorcher’!”  The ancient mummy then erupted into a loud burst of maniacal laughter.

 

Naturally, the vampires failed to see the humor in the mummy’s joke and each of them instead looked to the horizon with a rising sense of dread.  Queen Willa, too, backed away from the undead mage.  “Mumm-Ra… what have you done with Thelia?” she demanded, her voice not without a good measure of shock and fear.

 

“Relax, Queen Willa,” Mumm-Ra said, eyeing the warrior maiden Queen evenly.  “Your healer is alive and well in her home, asleep for the duration of which I borrowed her appearance.  My apologies for inconveniencing you so, but you warrior maidens were the easiest venue through which to eradicate these immortal pests from the face of Third Earth.  I dare to say that in this case, you do not find our surprise alliance all that distasteful though, do you?”

 

Eliza looked from the staked out vampires, to the boasting undead mage, and then back to the vampires.  “Ironic, isn’t it?” she mused, “that even the Ever-Living Source of Evil himself finds you blood-lusting demons distasteful and worthy of being destroyed for your treachery against the peoples of Third Earth.  And to think you had the gall to ask us to spare your lives!”

 

Ignoring the goading words of the angry warrior maiden and the gloating of Mumm-Ra, Bengali and Pumyra instead looked to each other and wished that they could touch, that they could be in one another’s arms if they were indeed about to face their last moments of life, vampire or not, together.  “I love you, Bengali,” Pumyra whispered, her eyes filling with tears.

 

“I love you too, Pumyra,” the tiger said with equally heavy emotion, struggling lightly and fruitlessly against his bonds.

 

The exchange of love between the Thundercats, and the threat of impending death, inspired a rare moment of affection in Alluro as well.  He found his eyes turned toward Janette and he looked to her sadly and somewhat longingly.  Janette looked over at him, feeling the weight of his gaze upon her.  I’m sorry, her voice echoed in his mind.  Eternity should not end for either of us this quickly.

 

I don’t blame you, Alluro’s voice replied telepathically.  I only wish we had more time.  As the psi vampire looked at his mistress, he noticed the jewel that he had placed upon her neck earlier that night was still there, glinting a little brighter as the starlight above gave way to a rising dawn. 

 

Nick, tied on the far end of the line of to-be-executed vampires, closed his eyes in sad and resigned defeat.  If his end was truly near, then maybe it was for the best.  If nothing else, he reasoned, he would have found some sort of mortality, and his soul would finally be at peace.

 

Of the vampires LaCroix was the only one who was feeling nothing reflective or affectionate, only resentful and stubborn.  The eldest of the vampires kept his eyes open and cast a challenging glare at the now pink and orange toned sky in the distance, saving the occasional hateful look directed toward the assemblage of Mumm-Ra and the warrior maidens around him.   “You will never be rid of me,” LaCroix hissed in unmatchable hatred.  “Even if you manage to kill me, rest assured that I will haunt you all from the depths of hell and bring you down to join me.”

 

The sky grew lighter.

 

* * *

 

Lion-O awoke from his light sleep at the side of the console in the Cat’s Lair control room by the characteristic growl of the Eye of Thundera.  The Thundercat Lord had been sleeping in there out of concern.  He had not heard any word from Bengali or Nick, or any of the other Thundercat search parties, in regards to Pumyra’s whereabouts.  He had been checking in with Lynx-O and Snarfer at the Tower of Omens periodically but no word had been heard there either.  Eventually the worried lion had drifted off into a light sleep, but that came to an end when the mystic eye roused him to warn him of danger.

 

Immediately Lion-O drew the Sword of Omens from the claw shield and invoked Sight Beyond Sight.  It showed a vision of Bengali, Pumyra, and Nick staked out in the field beside the other known vampires—LaCroix, Janette, and Alluro—with a band of angry warrior maidens and a smug Mumm-Ra above them, illuminated by the soft glow of the rising and deceptively beautiful sun.  “Great Jaga, they’ve captured them… and they’re going to kill them!”  Without hesitating a second, he slammed his hand down on the alarm panel to wake everyone in the Lair.

 

Within less than a minute each of the Thundercats currently staying in Cat’s Lair—Cheetara, Tygra, Panthro, and Snarf—was in the control room.  “Lion-O!” Snarf exclaimed as he ran in.  “What happened?”

 

“Bad news,” Lion-O explained, getting to his feet.  “We have to get our weapons and get to the hangar now.  Bengali, Pumyra, and Nick’s lives all depend on it.  The warrior maidens have captured them and have them tied out to expose them to the sunrise.”

 

“But why would that affect Pumyra?” Tygra asked.

 

Lion-O re-sheathed the Sword of Omens in the claw shield.  “Because she is now one of them.”

 

“But how?” Snarf asked.

 

“My guess would be her disappearance would explain that,” Cheetara said thoughtfully.

 

“I think so from what Bengali and Nick told me earlier, but we can worry about that later and I’ll explain it in the tank,” Panthro told the cheetah.  “Let’s get going!”

 

Lion-O nodded in agreement.  “Snarf, I’m going to ask you to stay here and stay by the control room.  You may need to alert the others at the Tower of Omens if we need backup.”

 

Snarf nodded agreeably.  “You bet I will, snarf snarf, and good luck!”

 

The Thundercats exchanged nods and put their hands together in a determined chorus of “Ho!” and then gathered their weapons.  Wasting not even a second, the armed Thundercats then piled into the Thundertank and ThunderClaw, and within minutes were on their way, racing the rising sun to save their friends.

 

* * *

 

RedEye was on the graveyard watch shift in Skytomb.  It had been a mostly quiet watch, and nothing out of the ordinary for DarkSide had been seen or heard by the Lunatac on watch.  He flipped back through multiple screens, switching from the scanners to one where he toyed with some of the Lunatacs’ theoretical new weaponry schematics on the computer’s design program for the heck of it.  Watch was fairly boring at that late hour as the other Lunatacs generally went to sleep a few hours after midnight.  Although Lunatacs preferred the night hours to the day and were semi-nocturnal, the late hours of the night were not ones they preferred to be up during and they usually turned in a few hours before dawn to rise several hours after it. 

 

It had caught RedEye by surprise, then, when Chilla walked into the control room at that hour.  “I would have thought you would be asleep by now,” the darkling remarked when he turned and saw the icewalker come in.

 

“I can’t get to sleep,” she rasped with a shrug.  “TugMug has been loud all night and Luna,” she let out a frosty breath of aggravation, “I don’t know what’s with her.  She was in the kitchen and either she or Amok was making a racket.  It sounded like they were throwing pots and pans all over the place, or emptying out the chill room shelves onto the floor.”

 

“What was it?” RedEye asked.  “I didn’t hear it up here.”

 

Chilla frowned somewhat indifferently.  “I have no idea.  If she was in that foul a mood that she was throwing things, do you think I wanted to go in and talk to her?”

 

The darkling chuckled.  “Good point.  I can’t say that I blame you.”  He flipped back to the scanner readout and flipped on the longer range ones to see if there was any activity they could pick up beyond DarkSide’s borders.  “If you ask me,” he said as he keyed in the sequence, “Luna is still having a tantrum over Alluro leaving yesterday.  I don’t think she believed he was truly serious about leaving.”  He paused.  “Quite frankly I didn’t either.”

 

“No,” Chilla agreed, her voice suddenly a bit quiet and halted.  “That wasn’t what any of us expected, really.”  She cast the darkling a curious look.  “I don’t suppose there has been any word from him?  Any sort of communication?”

 

RedEye shook his head.  “Not a word.”  He glanced up at her, eyeing her curiously.  Although RedEye was quiet and kept to himself, he knew that the icewalker had some sort of loose relationship with the psi, at least in that they occasionally shared quarters for a night.  He did not know the details of their involvement, nor did he particularly care, but Chilla’s reactions to Alluro’s recent behavior and subsequent departure were curious to the darkling, mostly because they were so strong for someone who claimed to care so little.  “Did you think there would be?”

 

The icewalker shook her head.  “No.”

 

The long-range scanners finished gathering their reading and the panel beeped to signal the completion of the survey.  RedEye glanced over at the screen and did a double take.  “What the—”

 

Chilla joined the darkling at the console.  “What is it?”

 

“The Thundercat vehicles,” RedEye said, frowning and fine-tuning the sensors to pick up some more detail about their path and speed.  “Where would they be going at this hour?”

 

“Track them and see,” Chilla said, also curious.  “The cats are usually quiet at this time of night unless someone riled them up.” 

 

“Yes, but who riled them up is the question.  Castle Plundarr is quiet,” RedEye informed Chilla.  “I just checked that a short while ago.”

 

The two Lunatacs watched the screen for several moments and then coordinates of a plotted path appeared.  “It’s two vehicles, the Thundertank and one of the smaller craft at a guess, and it would appear that they are heading toward the forest near the Tree Top Kingdom, or the hills beyond it to the southwest.  I wonder what it is they could be after out there.”

 

“Maybe a new Thundrillium deposit that we don’t know about?”

 

RedEye pursed his lips thoughtfully.  “That could be—and it would explain why they would go out there at this hour.  They would not expect the Mutants, or us, to be watching.”

 

A vicious and plotting smile crossed the icewalker’s features.  “Maybe we should take advantage of that and go see for ourselves what they’re after—and take it ourselves if it’s worth it.”

 

RedEye’s eyes glowed approvingly at the idea.  “It would be more entertaining than a boring watch if nothing else.  Shall I rouse the others?”

 

Chilla let out a frosty laugh and shook her head.  “Let them sleep it off.  Luna’s voice would be enough to kill any stealthy spying mission, and TugMug would break the rails of my Ice Runner if his lard-filled metal hide climbed on it.”

 

“Good point,” RedEye agreed, closing his programs and setting Skytomb to auto-defense mode.  “Let’s head out.”

 

The two Lunatacs took off in the Ice Runner shortly afterward and made the ride across Fire Rock Mountain quickly.  They had plotted the Ice Runner’s course so that it would catch up with the Thundercats near the edge of the forest that appeared to be their destination.  As they crossed over the edge of the tree line, RedEye began searching with his superior vision for whatever it was that their feline enemies were after—and let out an audible gasp when they saw what it was.  “By the Moons, Chilla—it’s an execution!  A vampire execution!”

 

“A what?” Chilla repeated in shock.  Immediately she thought about Alluro, and felt a twinge of worry for the Lunatac, although her thoughts quickly amended that the psi that had walked out on them in favor of his new vampire lover certainly did not deserve any.  “Is Alluro there?”

 

“He’s one of the ones being executed,” the darkling informed her with a scowl.  “By the warrior maidens—and Mumm-Ra.”

 

Chilla spat a breath of ice in rage.  “That immortal bastard mummy,” she snarled hatefully. 

 

“He must not be allowed to treat a Lunatac in such a manner, even if that Lunatac is a fool and a vampire now,” RedEye agreed.  “He is the reason that the six of us must stick together at least long enough to be rid of him.”

 

“Is his partner in on it too?” Chilla asked, increasing the speed to maximum.  “That LaCroix?  I thought he was Janette’s friend or something.”

 

RedEye shook his head.  “Janette and LaCroix are both bound as well, with the Thundercats—two of them now, it would seem, Bengali and Pumyra—and their friend Nick.  It seems that Mumm-Ra has turned his back on all of them.”

 

“Then I guess it’s our turn to stab Mumm-Ra in the back for a change,” Chilla hissed venomously.

 

* * *

 

Out in the field, the staked vampires began to squint and twist uncomfortably as the ambient natural light of the sun grew brighter and the first rays of sunlight peeked over the horizon.  The warrior maidens bearing the crosses above them to help keep the vampires weak adjusted their angles so that their shadows would not impede the burning of their hated foes when the sun rose high enough to do it.

 

As the light increased in intensity, it was the young vampires—Pumyra, Alluro, and Bengali—that felt it first.  It began as a sting and then increased gradually to a stinging burn, amplifying the pain they were in from the garlic arrows and the garlic-rubbed ropes that had rubbed their skin raw.  The scent of scalding flesh became detectable in the air and light smoke began to rise from their bound bodies.  Soon the elder vampires felt the burn as well, not quite as quickly or as extremely as their fledglings, but enough, and they knew that it would only get worse.  Not even the oldest vampire could withstand direct sunlight for very long.

 

Pumyra was the first to cry out in pain, and at her cry, Mumm-Ra looked over her with a victorious and wicked grin.  “Poor little Pumyra,” he said mockingly.  “Does that hurt?”

 

“Shut up, you bastard!” Bengali growled, both in fury at the mummy and in pain from the sunlight.

 

Mumm-Ra’s sneer then turned toward the vampiric tiger, and he laughed.  “I estimate half an hour at the most before the six of you are but a pile of dust and a bad memory.”  He paced in front of them, careful not to let his shadow linger for more than a second on any of them.  “I will relish your cries for mercy as the pain increases.”

 

“I would sooner burn in the hellfire of damnation than beg for anything from the likes of you,” LaCroix spat hatefully.

 

“Ah, but you’ll be doing that soon enough regardless, now won’t you, LaCroix?” Mumm-Ra countered with a cruel laugh.

 

The sun grew more intense, and the first rays of direct sunlight struck the bound vampires.  None could withstand its pain and each writhed in visible agony.  Despite his pride and considerable ego, Alluro was the next to succumb and he let out an intensely pained growl as the rays of the sun burned against the already burned flesh upon which the cross had been pressed to it hours before.  Bengali lost his fight to the pain a short while thereafter, followed by Nick and Janette a few moments later.  Soon only LaCroix had refused to give voice to the brutal sensation. 

 

Instead the eldest of the vampires remained rigidly spiteful, even in the very face of death, as though he simply refused to accept it.  I was not destroyed at Pompeii and I will not be destroyed now, his thoughts vowed angrily, although his body had lost the ability to voice them without giving into a scream of pain. 

 

The excruciating burn of the sunlight intensified, and just when the vampires had given up all hope that they might somehow escape what seemed an inevitable fate, the roar of the Thundertank was heard across the field, and it opened fire upon those holding the vampires captive.  The warrior maidens discharged their weapons toward the vehicle, but wisely scattered knowing that they could not stand against the advanced weaponry of the Thundertank.  Mumm-Ra roared in outrage and fired upon the Thundercat vehicle, but he was knocked to the side by another unexpected shot—from the Ice Runner.

 

Making no assumption about the allegiance of the Ice Runner’s pilots other than figuring that they were there to assist Alluro, the Thundercats decided to use the distraction of the arriving Lunatacs to their advantage and slowed the Thundertank long enough for Lion-O, Cheetara, and Tygra to jump out while Panthro used its weaponry to keep the warrior maidens at bay.  The panther did not shoot to kill at any of the women—although he was tempted—but he would be damned if he would let them hurt his friends any more than they already had.  Lion-O meanwhile drew the Sword of Omens and pointed it at Mumm-Ra.  “Your evil will not see our friends dead,” the Thundercat Lord informed the Ever-Living Source of Evil, and fired on him with the Sword of Omens with a hearty cry of “Ho!”

 

“We shall see about that, Lion-O,” Mumm-Ra growled determinedly, and fired a blast of dark magic back at the lion.

 

As the skirmish between Lion-O and Mumm-Ra began, Tygra and Cheetara hurriedly set about destroying the garlic rope binds upon the vampires, starting with Bengali, Pumyra, and Nick.  “Get them inside first, they are younger and will not last as long,” the badly burned Nick gasped to the cheetah.  Wordlessly Cheetara nodded and ushered first the weakened Pumyra, and then Bengali into the safety of the Thundertank.

 

Meanwhile the Ice Runner landed.  RedEye dismounted and quickly threw a blanket that was kept behind the Ice Runner’s main seat for emergencies over the burning Alluro.  The darkling quickly slashed the ropes holding the bound Lunatac vampire to the ground and shoved the disoriented psi forward into a rough and hunched over position behind Chilla’s seat, the most shade to be had in the small vehicle.  It was not a comfortable position but now that he no longer felt the excruciating experience of direct sunlight it felt comparatively like heaven.  “Get Janette,” Alluro gasped from beneath the blanket.

 

RedEye nodded and started back toward the area in which the vampires had been staked just as Tygra—only because the Code of Thundera demanded he do so to save the life even of an evil soul—severed the garlic ropes upon LaCroix.  At that moment the ancient vampire rose into the light in a furious rage, his body smoking heavily.  With one free hand he grabbed Janette’s arm and pulled her free along with him, and then he swooped forward at incredible vampiric speed and grabbed Nick by his shirt collar just as he was climbing into the Thundertank.  With stamina renewed from both pure survival instinct and the adrenaline of his hatred for those who had done this to him and his children, the eldest of the vampires then flew into the shadier cover of the forest to search for sanctuary from the burning rays of the sun.

 

“I’m too late, LaCroix has fled with her and the other human vampire,” RedEye told Alluro, climbing back onto the Ice Runner.  “Chilla, go.”  The Ice Runner was airborne within seconds.

 

“Damn you, Thundercats!” Mumm-Ra growled hatefully, seeing his plans rather than the vampires he wanted eliminated go up in smoke.  He turned toward the Ice Runner and glared hatefully.  “And you miserable Lunatacs!”

 

“Your murderous attempt to harm our friends has failed, Mumm-Ra,” Lion-O said, landing a lucky strike with the Sword of Omens that drove the demon priest back several feet.

 

“And you have just freed the one responsible for the transformation of two of your own Thundercats into the undead,” the mummy spat back contemptuously.  “As well as the ones who have killed the people that have turned your Third Earth allies against you.”

 

Lion-O’s gaze hardened as he regarded his enemy, facing him down confidently.  “Goodness seeks only to stop evil, Mumm-Ra, not destroy it… which is why I will give you the chance to leave now on your own rather than face the righteous justice of the Eye of Thundera if you continue to fight me.”

 

From the place on the ground she had taken cover when Panthro had opened fire, the warrior maiden Eliza saw the vampires escape and the Thundercat Lord gain the upper hand against Mumm-Ra.  “No!  We were so close!  They should die!”

 

Mumm-Ra heard the angry warrior maiden’s shout and then realized there was still a chance at being rid of some of the vampires.  He knew where LaCroix would go, and where in the forest the vampires might seek sanctuary. 

 

“And they shall,” Mumm-Ra roared, and flew away from Lion-O to the warrior maiden’s side.  “Go with my magic to Karnor’s tower and set it ablaze.”  The demon priest chanted a teleportation spell and within a flash Eliza was gone.  Mumm-Ra turned triumphantly to Lion-O.  “You may have saved your Bengali and Pumyra, but you will never make it in time to stop the blazing death that will shortly claim the lives of LaCroix and his two children.”  The mummy let out a cruel laugh, and then flew off into the air in the direction of his pyramid.

 

“He’s right,” Tygra said urgently, climbing into the Thundertank.  “If Karnor’s tower has been set to burn and that’s where they went, we’re miles away—how can we make it on time?”

 

Panthro revved the engine into high gear.  “We just have to, for Nick’s sake.” 

 

The Thundercats now all aboard, the Thundertank sped away from the sunlit plain at record speed toward Baron Karnor’s tower.

 

* * *

 

Eliza reappeared high in the treetop by the Tower of Traps, at the vantage point at which Thelia—who was probably Mumm-Ra then, she realized in retrospect—had pointed out to her.  The structure was quiet, but she knew—she felt—that that the vampire that had bitten her the night before last was within its confines.  Determinedly she lit a flame and set two arrows ablaze.  One she loaded right away and fired expertly through the suite’s top window, and it landed right in the alcohol and oil-soaked velour bedding.  There was a loud rushing sound, and within seconds she could see the flames flickering high and growing brighter inside the vampires’ nest.

 

She loaded the second arrow, and fired that time at the soaked kindling she and the other warrior maidens had laid around its base.  “Get ready to meet your dark gods, demon creatures,” she murmured coldly to the wind, and fired.  The brush exploded into a brilliant blaze of fire, and she sat there satisfied for several moments as she watched the accursed tower begin to burn.  The warrior maiden grinned satisfactorily and climbed closer to the edge of the branch she sat upon so that she could eye work with pride.

 

As the fire spread further inside the tower and reached an old store of gunpowder in one of the storage rooms, a second explosion rocked through the doomed structure, sending a brilliant blast of flames out across the balcony.  Not expecting the resultant rush of air and heat, the warrior maiden lost her balance and stumbled high within the treetop.  She yelped in alarm and struggled to keep her hold on the tree, but a second rush—a dark flash she could have sworn—knocked her aside and sent her flailing form straight into the heart of the fire at the doomed tower’s base, where she spent her final moments admiring her efforts firsthand.

 

* * *

 

Once they were airborne and leaving the scene of the near-execution, Alluro straightened as best he could in the confines of the cramped section behind Chilla’s seat, and kept the blanket over him to shield himself as best he could from the light around him.  It was not a comfortable position but it did not feel like it was killing him any longer.   

 

“So where do you want us to leave you at this time of day?  Karnor’s tower?” Chilla asked the psi vampire in a demanding rasp.  “Since obviously Skytomb isn’t anywhere you want to be any longer.”

 

“That will be fine,” Alluro replied weakly, and then added something rather uncharacteristic for his considerable pride.  “Chilla, RedEye… I want to thank you for… what you did.”  His ego could not let himself actually say the words “saving my life” aloud—especially when had been boasting to those same Lunatacs about his immortality the night before.

 

“No Lunatac would stand to watch one as contemptible as Mumm-Ra treat another Lunatac in such a manner,” RedEye stated evenly. 

 

An icy huff came from Chilla at the remarks of the other two Lunatacs.  “Even if said Lunatac is an arrogant jerk.”

 

“Chilla, slow down,” RedEye said suddenly, his vocal tone changing noticeably.  “Look down there—is that Karnor’s tower?”