Elbow scraping against rough concrete, Zatanna lifted her head to take in the aftermath of her Spell and gagged at the gallery of Vampiric remains.
As blood trickled from her nose, she carefully navigated the scene, cringing when a blackened arm disintegrated into a puff of dust under her foot.
'Stupid, stupid Rowan.'
Zatanna tried to cling to the righteous, burning anger she felt for the boy, but it was hard to fuel a fire when the [SolarFlare] had scraped both her Magical and emotional reserves clean.
Zatanna opened her mouth to cast a simple Cleaning Charm, only to inhale on a lungful of of ash… Ash that tasted all too similar to burnt pork chops.
"Ew!!!" She choked, doubling over hacking coughs as her mind zeroed on the vile taste on her tongue.
Her stomach understandably revolted when she realized she was inhaling and tasting Vampiric remains, but having skipped dinner, the Apprentice Magician had nothing other than bitter stomach acid to offer the river of filth… A small mercy, she supposed. "Gross, gross, gross!"
Covering her mouth and nose with a handkerchief, Zatanna peered into the darkness ahead and, wisely, decided to call it quits. She had obsessed over the online discussions, seen the endless debates about the Imp's methods and whether his brand of brutality had any place in modern society.
If anyone needed worrying over, it was the Undead.
Nevertheless, in an attempt to quiet the nagging voice of her own conscience, Zatanna fished a Communication Talisman from her pocket and Chanted, "[Iris, Radiant Bearer of the Seven Hues,
Span the gulf that separates the two.
Upon your arc of light, let my voice ride,
To the distant place where my Blood resides.]."
None of this would be necessary if her dad would just use a cellphone, but he was nothing if not stubborn. 'No wonder he and John get along so well.' She thought with a roll of her eyes as the Talisman burst into flames, colorful smoke rising straight and true until the faint shape of her dad appeared.
"—Zatanna Zatara! You're in a world of troubles, young lady!"
Zatanna winced and tried for an awkward, placating smile. "Hi, Daddy…"
"—Don't you 'Hi, Daddy' me! Where are you? Are you well?! Where's Rowan?!!"
"I'm fine, but there are Vampires—" She started, the explanation dying on her lips as the hard, even scrape of heavy boots in the water reached her ears, persuading her to pivot toward the sound and mouth, "Imp? Is that you?"
"—Let me speak to him!" Barked Zatara, his smoky Projection surging forth as if to throttle the boy.
Tuning out her father's tirade, Zatanna strained her eyes trying to make out the figure's features as it shuffled forth, 'Did he grow boobs?!'
The Stray's jaws worked, releasing a… Noise she mistook for a groan initially, until the sound stretched into something a tad more… Recognizable, yet horribly grating still. "MaGic! I sssENse MAgIK!"
"Yes, Magic. And you'll get a much closer look at it if you don't stay right where you are." Zatanna snobbishly warned, Arcs of Magic beginning to leak adrift from her fingertips, but if the Stray felt threatened at all, it clearly knew better than to show it.
"Finally! I've been looking for your kind for ages…!" The Stray rasped, voice booming right behind her.
Letting out a startled shriek, Zatanna tumbled onto her back and watched in horror as the creature knelt, delighting in the fine ash of the Fallen. Creeped out, she Summoned a Fireball which the Stray effortlessly swatted aside like a particularly bothersome fly.
"—Leave her alone, Vampire, or face my wrath!"
"Your Wrath?" The Stray sneered, raking its claws through Zatara's Projection until the Connection fully dissolved. "What are yours compared to mine?"
"Dad, n—!"
The rest of her scream, much to Zatanna's dismay, was smothered by its calloused palm.
"You'll have to do…"
.
.
.
Meanwhile, over at the Burrow.
"You know, I'm a little confused… I was under the impression age equaled power for your kind."
"That's what I assumed too, but Yvonne's not just any Vampire, she's a Meta as well. Quite strange, since the Dark Gift typically erases the Metagene entirely." Margaret confessed, cupping her face with palms. "There aren't many Vampires around, so the Young One you seek must be hers. The climate in a seaside city just isn't agreeable to our kind, I'm afraid."
"… You're… Terrifyingly well-informed." Especially given how withdrawn the Vampire Kingdom had remained over the last five centuries.
"So I've been told."
"If you don't mind me asking: What power does she possess, why did you turn her and how did you two fall out?"
"She can enhance herself by killing. As for the other two..." Margaret explained, then faltered, expression souring into a pout that made Rowan, despite his brain telling him otherwise, want to reach out, if only to soothe her pain. Luckily, he was able to rein in the desire. "It's a long, blood and tragic tale, but it boils down to three simple words: She's too volatile.
My Sire even warned me about her; said she was a wild mutt who'd bite the hand-that-feeds given the chance, but you know how hormones are…"
'Oh, tell me about it.' Rowan mused, gaze straying to her low-cut; specifically the pale, porcelain curves beneath her neckline, before he caught himself. Fortunately, he still had the sense to keep his sardonic agreement internal. "Your Sire?"
The Vampire grinned, though she appeared to be gazing at a recollection more than at him. "My Sire, yes, the King-in-Red."
"You seem fond of him."
That was a first… Everything Rowan had ever studied, from literature to actual historical records, suggested Vampires almost always grew distant from, if not came to detest their Makers outright. "I am. Though I doubt many share the sentiment. He's 'Too brutal,' they say. 'Too spiteful and broody.'"
"Sounds like my kind of fella'."
He snickered, gathering his damaged helmet while at the same time eyeing the exit.
"Eager to leave already?"
"You said it yourself: There's a Mage who needs rescuing, and a Lady whose castle's under attack."
Playfully disappointed, Margaret sighed softly. "What a shame! I was hoping you'd stay the night."
It would be a damn lie if Rowan claimed he wasn't tempted.God knew he could already picture himself taking her right there on the floor, against that oak tree, sprawled across her high-chair, even suspended from the ceiling cables. 'Christ, get your head out of the gutter, motherfucker. Necrophilia's a crime!'
Then she reached into a hollow in the tree, producing a silver Roman coin worn so smooth the Emperor's face had all but vanished.
"This is?"
"A Token for good luck, Brave Knight. May it serve you well in your quest."
Lips pursed, Rowan narrowed his eyes at the visibly smug Vampire. "Pardon me, but I couldn't help noticing you, uhm, capitalized the 'T' a bit there."
"Because it is no ordinary coin; it was, well, is 'His' keepsafe." As she guided him down the escalator, Margaret grazed the spot where Zatara had carved the Rune of Chaos into his skin and whispered. "Pick correctly, and it is a d20; choose incorrectly, and it becomes a d1. There is no in-between… May it serve you as faithfully as it has served my Sire and myself."
Startled by the modern, downright gamey terminologies, Rowan spun, only to find himself cartwheeling down the escalator. He reached for the Batclaw, but before his training could kick in, vertigo already did. Holding back bile, Rowan shut his eyes and strained his ears to quiet his rolling stomach; strained to hear the simple folk song Margaret was humming.
"Oh, if you have a wish to make,
A prize to claim or a life to take,
The King-in-Red will hear your pleas,
But only if you'd bend the knee~!"
"Now wait a goddamn minute!" Rowan roared, a storm of questions sloshing around in his brain—questions about the Universe, about Reincarnation, about the person he once was and everything im-between. There must have been hundreds of things he wanted to ask!
Each as important as the last…
None the dwindling seconds would allow, so Rowan settled for the simplest: "Will we ever meet again?!" And received a knowing smile in return.
"He needs no shadow, he needs no guise,
To look at you through borrowed eyes.
A million Vessels of his very own,
A million Seeds of Terror sown~"
Space bent and warped around him, tumbling Rowan end over end until the escalator started to loom like a steep mountain.
"At least tell me how to find Zatanna!"
Nothing answered him; nothing except the haunting final verses sang in a troubled voice that gradually softened into serene hums.
"So if you owe the King a debt,
Then try to shirk what you've beget,
Beware the lurking Carnifex;
Whose blade will slice right through your neck."
By the time the world stopped spinning and Rowan came to, he was already on his back in the tunnel. He turned, squinting at the bright red door, and grabbed the handle, only to drag his fingers through a mess of oil pastels. It was no a door at all, as it turned out; only a really, really convincing drawing.
Smoothing his creased brows, Rowan carefully examined the Roman coin in his palm. Apart from its obvious antiquity and the worth of the raw metal itself, it could probably pass for any ordinary coin to the untrained eye.
"A Token of Fortune, huh?" Mumbling to himself, he thumbed the engraving of the Roman Emperor, and glanced over his shoulder at the blackened skeletons. 'Magic.' Was the diagnosis Rowan came to after a good minute studying the skeletons' chipped fangs, split jaw and the handkerchief he was certain he'd seen Zatanna use earlier in the day.
Boots scuffing through a thin film of ash and heaps of what clearly used to be Vampires, Rowan couldn't help but laugh, "Good fucking gollies, Zee. Like father, like daughter, I guess." Then he tossed the handkerchief to the Shade who was feigning innocence in the corner.
"Find Zatanna. If she gets hurt, or God forbid, dies, I'm tossing you under the bus." Off to the side, its Master urged as the Astral Projection snatched the cloth from the air, committing the lingering scent to memory.
A neigh sputtered from Ichor's mouth as it transformed into a nightmarish thing with the head of a hound and the body of a horse.
Then off the Shade galloped.
Determined not to lag behind twice, Rowan fired the Batclaw and, in one fell swoop, mounted the Beast's back. "Run, Barry! Run!"
Most favored propulsion vehicles, others preferred electric-powered rides… Turned out, neither got shit on Hybrids.
.
.
.
Drip… Drip… Drip…
The first sound Zatanna's addled brain caught on was the lonely drip of a rusted, broken faucet not too far away, followed by the keen smell of dry blood, stale bread, mixed with the tinniest bit of dust.
The place smelled and sounded like an abandoned slaughterhouse where the ghosts of butchered animals still haunted.
A more sensible explanation for the howlings would be broken pipes, shoddy construction and a lack of maintenance, but where was the fun in sensibility?
Head pounding with each drop, Zatanna kept her eyes shut, struggling against the rope biting into the lumps of her wrists and, for her troubles, earned herself an intense surge of pain that nearly made her cry out. Thank God she didn't. It would have been quite the hassle if whatever was causing all that rustling turned its attention to her, after all.
Opening her eyes to waning light to discover she'd been tied to a concrete pillar, and muzzled with dirty rags she truly dreaded to consider the origins of, Zatanna sighed. 'Of course this happens the one time I snuck out!'
She wasn't having a good time, and if she wasn't convinced screaming would bring the vile creature right back to her, she would have let loose.
This, obviously, wasn't her first go-around. Granted her captors usually demonstrated better... Hygiene practices than this. With a roll of her eyes, Zatanna tried to squirm free of the restraints, and stopped mid-motion when she detected footsteps drawing near her position. Stifling an annoyed grunt, she went limp and feigned death once more.
The approach had gotten her out of some pretty dodgy situations in the past and, by Zatanna's count, worked nine out of ten times. "I know you're awake, Mage Apprentice. I can hear your heartbeat as plain as the car horns two streets down."
As the Vampire's elongated nails sank into her cheeks and jawline, however, she couldn't help the small gasp that escaped…
This, it appeared, was the rare tenth.
"Open your eyes or I'll pluck them from your skull."
Zatanna's eyelids cracked open as the Vampire removed the gag, her gaze immediately catching the hideously deformed creature whose putrid breath somehow managed to smell worse than the building around them. "You're butt-ugly..."
She blurted, then braced for retaliation, half-expecting a furious snarl, a vicious strike, or even just a murderous glare in response to her brazen provocation.
'The angrier, the better.' Zatanna figured.
Angry villains had a tendency to monologue, and monologues would buy her reinforcements—mainly her dad—precious time to arrive and kick some ass. Yet, contrary to Zatanna's expectations, the Vampire did not rise to the bait. "Really? No 'Why are you doing this to me?' Or 'Where am I?' Not even a 'Please don't hurt me?'"
"Would you even tell me if I asked?"
"But of course!" The Vampire beamed, peeling away the veil covering her face, and where Zatanna expected putrid, rotting flesh, she found only a bare skull with chunky lesions that resembled untreated syphilis clinging to bone. "As you can see, I'm dying of a Curse, and desperately require magical assistance."
"Jesus—What happened to you?!"
"My Sire," She hissed with venom, pulverizing part of the concrete column to powder. "Can you believe it?! My own Sire did this to me! That bitch! That pretentious fucking WHORE!"
Afraid of catching a 'stray bullet,' Zatanna pulled her legs back and pressed into the corner. "[Eitnueht—]" Her Incantation was, sadly, cut short when the Vampire's hand wrapped around her throat.
Airway crushed, the Mage thrashed desperately. She'd have clawed at the offending hand if she could, but with her arms bound, she opted for the next best option: Violent. Kicking.
"Do you take me for an imbecile, Witch? Whisssper your Spells again, I dare you…"
The more Zatanna fought, the tighter the grip became, until she genuinely began to fear for her mortality, but just as Canon were about to get shafted, a bellow erupted from somewhere in the chamber.
Wheezing as the mad Vampire dropped her, she followed its stare.
She'd hoped it was her father or Rowan, but it wasn't.
It was just the Stray; the same Stray Rowan had brutalized earlier.
How did Zatanna identify him, you ask? Why, the rusted metal rod jutting from his ribcage, burrowing deeper each time he pulled against the restraints, obviously! "ARGGGH!"
Quite the pickle they'd found themselves in.
"Oh, pipe down already, bastard!"
Only after the manic Vampire had vanished from sight did Zatanna finally dare to release the breath she'd been holding.
Her momentary relief, however, proved short-lived, as no more than a minute later, the creature returned, dragging the unfortunate Stray behind him by the scruff of his neck like a wayward cat.
"H-Here, let me ssshow you!"
The diseased Vampire let loose a feral hiss before it sank its fangs into the Stray's neck, and taking ravenous gulps until the latter's cheeks caved inward and his already pallid green complexion faded to a corpse-like grey. Zatanna could only watch in horror as terror and desperation filled the Stray's eyes in his final moments. Then he crumpled to the floor like a discarded puppet, every last trace of life, or unlife extinguished.
His Sire, meanwhile, was regenerating at an alarming rate. In fact, she now resembled something almost human—dare Zatanna say it. There were still telltale signs, of course: From her motionless chest that never rose or fell, her unblinking stare, to that sickly yellowish-green undertone to her skin… Nothing that couldn't be explained away with a dismissive 'I was at a costume party.'
"Y-You!"
"My apologies," The Vampire spoke, unnervingly calm compared to the rabid creature she'd been moments before. "I'm not myself when I'm hungry."
"Are you OUT OF YOUR MIND?! He was your—"
"He was livestock, nothing more," She stated matter-of-factly, then invaded Zatanna's personal space to take in an uncomfortably deep breath. "Vampires, Metas, Mages; they each provide different sustenance, different enhancements. And they all have such distinct flavors, if you can imagine."
"What do you want?" Zatanna growled through gritted teeth.
"Ah, there's the fire I was looking for." Not remotely amused, the girl glared defiantly and repeated with even more venom, "What. Do. You. Want?"
"I already showed you my predicament... I was cursed. Cursed so that the very act that empowers me also kills me slowly. I've tried everything to break it; consulted every Mage I could find… They all said the Curse could only be lifted by the person who cast it."
She extended her arm toward Zatanna, revealing the ominous black veins that carved through her flesh like lightning.
"Feeding on Metas and other Vampires used to stave off the worst of the deterioration, but lately—"
"And what exactly do you expect me to do about it? I'm only fourteen! If seasoned Mages couldn't lift your Curse, how could I possibly?!"
"I wasn't expecting you to," She started, pinching Zatanna's nose between her fingers. "But you have a tutor, correct? He'll break my Curse or he can get you back… In pieces."
"My father will destroy you if you try."
"I'd love to see him try." Overhead, a T-beam groaned, accompanied by scurrying that both assumed were rats, until their conversation was interrupted by a voice that sounded like an old speaker at max vol.
"—How 'bout I give it a go?"
"Who?!" The Vampire wouldn't recognize the voice, but Zatanna sure did, and boy, was she glad to hear him.
"—Guess..." His voice boomed again somewhere in the rafters, but from a different direction this time.
"Me? You dare hunt ME?! I am DelilahYvonne, and I will not tolerate such humiliation!"
Fangs bared, the Vampire snarled, spinning around wildly.
"—What makes you think I care what you will or won't tolerate, Delilah? " The contempt Rowan managed to weave into that single name actually impressed Zatanna, and if her throat wasn't so sore, she would have surely whooped with delight. 'Way to go, Ree. Way to go!'
"—Furthermore, I don't just dare to… I already am!" Lips pursed, the Vampire's gaunt features contorted as her eyes, burning with a lifeless light, scanned the shadows above. "Then show yourself, coward! Show yourself and let's see what we're both made of!"
"—Patience, sweetheart. Good things come to those who wait." From above, a cape burst from Rowan's back, cushioning his descent, while Yvonne, true to her word, went to test their mettle, only to be repelled by a blinding flash of light. "Why, you infuriating little—"
But the light wasn't intended for her; it was meant for the Sentient Shadow that was already coiling its fingers around her ankle. Staring down the Dark Entity, Delilah could only snarl before getting grabbed and dragged through the wall and into the other room. 'A Shadow Familiar?'
Familiars, by definition, were magical constructs that never truly tired and could not die. But Magic always had weaknesses. All things did, really, and she might have an idea what this one's weakness was. Digging her nails into the ground, she tore out chunks of concrete until they both slowed to a halt.
Then, Yvonne Conjured a [Blood Spear] that, well, speared through one of the illuminating drones.
"You require light."
Meanwhile, in the other room…
"See? This is why I didn't want you tagging along." Muggings were one thing; he'd have let her tag along for those any day of the week.
Vampires were another…
He'd read 'DC vs. Vampires,' after all, and though the Elseworld was a complete clusterfuck in terms of power-scaling and character assassination, he knew better than to underestimate the one thing it managed to get right: Mainly how stupidly fast things could go to shit when the infectious Undead crashed the party.
Zatanna responded with a weak grin. "Worth it to see you in action, Ree!"
Shooting her a withering look, Rowan snarked back. "If you call me that again, I will make sure the whole world knows you still call your dad 'Daddy' at fourteen."
"What's wrong with that?!"
"Oh, shut it and let me take a look at that."
Chin tilted up by gloved fingers, Zatanna found herself staring into six orange eyes that blinked slightly out of sync, as if their owner wasn't quite used to coordinating them all at once just yet.
Silently, she took in the sharp, aristocratic lines of his face, the hard angle of his jaw, and the unsettling red of his skin—all of it should have been intimidating, yet Zatanna found herself fixating on his careful touch as he examined her injury instead, and then on their closeness, which sent an unexpected flutter through her stomach.
Mortified by her own reaction in such a situation, she tried to cover her embarrassment with humor, offering a flirty, "Well, I didn't know you felt like that way, Re—" Only to get smacked upside the head. "What was that for?!"
"Shhh!" Hushed Rowan as he inspected the finger-shaped bruises forming on her neck, 'Oh, shit... Oh fuck… Jesus H. Christ… Teach's gonna fucking shank me, isn't he?' The sounds of fighting continued to echo from the other room as he smeared the Bat-ointment on her neck, hoping it would prevent the bruising and spare him a beating from Zatara.
He was cutting Zatanna loose when the light in the other room suddenly died, plunging both into a darkness their eyes scrambled to adjust to. "There's the stairs... Go down first. Contact your dad and have him pick you up—?!"
Mid-instruction, Rowan suddenly doubled over, feeling as though he was being torn in two from the waist. "R-Rowan? What happened?!"
Zatanna fussed, helping him up by the shoulder just as the wall behind them crumbled, sending debris and bricks to the floor. Dust choked the air and them both as a silhouette appeared, growing darker with every step, and out came the Vampire, carrying halves of Ichor in each hand.
"I did."