Chapter 18

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away, disappearing into the shadows of the cavern. I watched it go, a knot forming in my stomach.

Muggs, you’d better stick to the plan, I thought to myself. Don’t get distracted by these cupids.

Oblivion’s laughter echoed off the cavern walls. “Come along, Mercy. Wouldn’t want you to miss the show.”

I squared my shoulders and turned to face him. Alice’s body was merely a puppet; the thing controlling her was ancient, cruel. “You won’t lay a finger on them,” I said. “Not if you want my help to get the djinn’s lamp.”

“Oh, but plans change, darling. I don’t need your help anymore.” Oblivion examined Alice’s nails with a bored expression. “I’ll unravel this puny world with or without you. But for now, I think I’ll have some fun erasing your friends from existence.”

My fists clenched. I longed to wipe that smug look off Alice’s face, but Oblivion would just toss me aside like a rag doll. “So that’s it? What about our deal?”

“That ship has sailed, I’m afraid.” Oblivion pushed past me, heading for the cavern exit. “The stakes have risen! What I want now isn’t the lamp...”

I hurried after him, my mind racing. There had to be some way to stall him, to buy us more time. But Oblivion was hellbent on destruction, drunk on his own power.

“Then what do you want?! What will you take to stop this madness?”

Oblivion ignored my question. He continued down the winding cavern path, whistling an eerie, off-key tune. The sound grated on my nerves, echoing off the walls and amplifying until it felt like nails on a chalkboard.

I lunged, trying to tackle Oblivion from behind, but he flung out a hand and I slammed into the cavern wall. The impact knocked the wind out of me. As I struggled back to my feet, Oblivion glanced over his shoulder, an amused glint in his eye.

“Nice try, but you can’t stop me that easily.”

“Why won’t you tell me what you want?!”

Oblivion chuckled and went back to his infuriating whistling as he continued down the path.

Soon we emerged into a massive cavern, the ceiling soaring up into darkness. The walls were coated with a shimmering ichor. Small cocoons... containing my friends... stuck to the walls.

Antoine, Clement, the orphans, even some of Juliet’s younglings. They looked like grotesque mummies, insects caught in a spider’s web...

Oblivion sauntered up to one of the ichor pods and wiped a section clean, revealing the soldier inside. My throat tightened. “Don’t... please...”

But Oblivion just smiled, placing a hand on the vampire’s forehead. In the blink of an eye, he was gone. No breath. No flash of energy. Just... gone.

“Bye bye, bloodsucker!” Oblivion cackled.

He went from pod to pod, casually wiping vampires out of existence. I clawed at his back. I screamed for him to stop, but he ignored me.

I pleaded with Alice to fight back, to stop Oblivion from using her body for such evil. But she remained motionless, Oblivion’s possession absolute.

Finally, he paused and turned back to me, a wicked grin on his face. “There’s the Mercy I know. Such delicious anger simmering inside you.”

He leaned in close, his breath hot on my face. “I’ll stop, but only if you let me in. Let me take away all that pain.”

A shiver went through me. I realized then what he was trying to do - stoke my rage, my sorrow, to worm his way back into my mind. With my powers as a witch, I was the one he truly craved to control.

I took a deep breath, steadying myself. “Just... just don’t hurt anyone else. Please.”

Oblivion laughed, a harsh sound like nails on slate. “You can’t bargain with me, witch. I’ll do as I please. But it’s cute that you think you can.”

He turned and wiped the ichor away from Antoine’s pod. My friend’s face emerged, lifeless.

“This one is loyal to you, no?” Oblivion sneered. “It would be a shame if something happened to him.”

Fury boiled up inside me. “Don’t you fucking dare!” I snarled. But even as the words left my mouth, I felt my control slipping. Oblivion’s manipulation was working.

I had to stay calm. I couldn’t give him the foothold he wanted inside my mind. But with Antoine’s life on the line, I didn’t know if I could...

Oblivion’s eyes glinted with malicious glee. “Let go, Mercy. Or your friend will pay the price.”

I took a deep breath, steadying myself. “You feed on our emotions,” I said evenly. “That’s all you have left to cling to. All you can use to manipulate us.”

I met Alice’s gaze, trying to reach the friend trapped within. “Don’t let him poison you with anger and pain, Alice. You’re stronger than he is.”

Oblivion threw back his head and cackled. “That’s the problem with you pathetic creatures. You’re more like the humans you feed from than you care to admit. Ruled by your messy little feelings. So easy to twist them to my own ends.”

He leaned in close, his breath fetid. “I’ll peel back all those layers of humanity you cling to. The love, the anguish, the fear. I’ll strip it all away until there’s nothing left but the howling void.”

I set my jaw, resolute. “You’re wrong. Our emotions make us who we are. Even as vampires, they’re the last echoes of the lives we left behind.”

I balled my fists. “You want to break us, but you can’t. Not while we stand united. Not while we have each other.”

For a moment, Alice’s eyes cleared, and I saw her gaze back at me with hope. But then Oblivion seized control once more, his face twisting with rage.

“We’ll see about that, witch,” he growled. He reached for Antoine again, murder in his eyes.

This was it. I had to break through to Alice now, or we would all be lost...

I steeled myself and shouted, “Alice, I know you’re still in there! Don’t let him use you like this. You’re stronger than his hate, his cruelty. Fight him!”

Oblivion howled, enraged at my words. He whirled to face me, ichor dripping from his hands.

“You pathetic fool. I’ve already won. Soon your so-called Underground will be nothing but dust, erased from existence by my hand.”

I met his glare unflinchingly. “No. You’ll never win, not truly. Because no matter how much chaos and suffering you cause, it will never fill that void inside you.”

I took a step towards him, emboldened. “We have something you can never understand, Oblivion—love. For each other, for our world. Yes, even for whatever remains of our humanity. And we will never stop fighting for it.”

Suddenly, Alice’s body spasmed. Her eyes flickered. She clutched her head, crying out in pain and effort.

I rushed to her side. “Alice! I know you can overpower him. Fight!”

With a guttural scream, she fell to her knees. When she looked up at me again, her eyes were clear.

“Mercy,” she gasped, “he’s fighting me, but I’m still here.”

Relief flooded through me. I clasped her shoulder. “You did it, Alice. I knew you were stronger than him.”

She managed a pained smile. “For now. But we have to be quick—I can’t hold Oblivion back forever.”

I nodded, resolute. “Then let’s end this. Together. We just need a few days and we can bring Ladinas back.”

Alice gripped my hand, her face etched with strain. “We’re trapped here. Three days on earth, maybe. But time moves differently in this world. Here, we’d have to wait a hundred years before Ladinas could return.”

My heart sank. I’d been so focused on surviving each moment that I had forgotten about how time was passing differently in this world. That Ladinas had only just started his extra century to charge up his power had slipped my mind.

“You’re right,” I said heavily. “We can’t wait that long for Ladinas. Not here. But what if I told you that you could be with Ladinas soon? But you’d have to join him in the lamp...”

With Oblivion inside of me?” Alice asked. “I don’t know...”

“Ladinas is like a god in the lamp. Oblivion would be little more than a nuisance. A fly that Ladinas could swat away with little more than a thought.”

“But the cupids are still on earth...”

I took Alice’s hands. “I know. That’s why we can’t do this yet. We need you to be strong. Draw hope from the chance you’ll have to be with Ladinas soon. But there’s one more thing you need to know.”

Alice bit her lip, uncertainty in her eyes. “What is it?”

“If we put you in the lamp with Ladinas, we can’t ever let you out. Ladinas might be able to squash Oblivion while he’s in the lamp world, but in a century earth-time, when the djinn returns...”

“Oblivion will leave. He’ll be hellbent on vengeance.”

I nodded. “Which is why we can’t allow the djinn to return. When the time comes, I’ll fight like hell. I’ll find a way to stop him. But that means...”

“We’ll be stuck in the lamp... forever...”

I nodded. “I know it’s a lot to ask.”

She closed her eyes. When she opened them again, they shone with purpose. “We’d be together. Not stuck. Finally free. For Ladinas, I’d give anything. Even eternity in that lamp, if it means we’re together. But I can’t make that choice for him.”

I shook my head. “We already told Ladinas that this might be a possibility. In fact, it was his idea. He’s willing to do this. He already said he’d give up the world to be with you, Alice.”

Alice’s resolve wavered, uncertainty clouding her eyes once more. “I want to say yes. But the cupids...”

I took her hands again, giving them a reassuring squeeze. “I know. But perhaps you can use the hope of being with Ladinas for strength. I need you to dig deep. I know you’re barely holding on. But you need to take over Oblivion’s power. You need to play him like the puppet he tried to make of you.”

Alice took a deep breath. “To send the cupids back to where they belong. To end this nightmare. To free our friends.”

“Think of Ladinas,” I said. “His love for you. You can do it.”

Alice grinned and put her hand on my shoulder. She grabbed the cross dangling from her neck with her other hand. “Being with Ladinas isn’t the only source of my strength. I have faith. I can do this.”

I smiled at Alice. I didn’t share her faith, but I certainly admired it. Even if her faith had once been used against her as a pretense to turn her into a self-loathing vampire who killed other vampires. That was in the past, of course. We all made mistakes. I certainly did. And if her faith gave her what she needed to get this done, who was I to question it?

“We can’t climb out of here, you know. We’ll need you to take Oblivion’s power before we can get free and reach the portal home.”

Alice nodded. “But before I do that, I need to free our friends.”

Alice turned, still clutching her cross. The power around her swirled in an impressive light show. She’d wielded celestial power once. She had appeared like an angel. But now it was as if she’d reclaimed that power—as if she’d taken Oblivion’s power and refined it through the purity of her hope and faith.

With a blast of power, the ichor binding our friends burned away. One by one, they came to. Antoine, Clement, Ian and the other orphans. All of them—except those who Oblivion had already... erased...

Alice’s eyes brimmed with tears as she took a step closer to the first vampire to regain consciousness. She wiped away Antoine’s tears with a trembling hand, her voice wavering as she whispered, “We’re not home yet, Antoine. But you’re safe. The nightmare is over.”

With every vampire that blinked open their eyes and found themselves no longer trapped in that sticky, foul-smelling ichor, Alice’s resolve strengthened. This was more than just a fight for the Underground. It was a fight for hope, for love, and for the very essence of what it meant to be alive.

I was at a loss for words. When Alice turned around, blazing in power, I practically choked on my tongue. “You did it! I can’t believe it!”

“I told you,” Alice smiled at me. “My faith works.”

“I don’t know about your religion...”

“It doesn’t matter,” Alice said. “Whether you believe in God or not, today, you were my angel. And I see it clearly now. Despite all we’ve been through. You’ve always been my angel.”

I didn’t have words to respond. I wasn’t a hugger—but the emotion of the moment overwhelmed me. Not the kind of emotion Oblivion could use against me, either. I wrapped my arms around Alice. “Let’s get home and end this once and for all.”