was last to enter. His entry was slow and there was a brief flash of pain he couldn’t prevent the others from feeling as he shed his body to become spirit. Like those of the other two from the monastery, Val’s spirit was a different color than expected, more an antique gold, not in the least bright, but tarnished gold, with dark streaks running through the light.
Tariq had nothing to reference such spirits by, so again, he had to go with his gut and believe that all three were there to aid Charlotte before all else. He gathered her closer to him and felt the heat as they swept through her body, paying attention first to every organ, ensuring her body was accepting the conversion, and then speeding the process along.
The three lights, ivory, silver and gold, moved toward her rib cage and the barrier Tariq had constructed around Vadim’s splinter. Ivory took the center, facing the splinter fully, while gold went to the left and silver to the right. They studied the situation carefully as they began unweaving Tariq’s safeguards.
The splinters attack the red cells, Tariq reminded them. Charlotte had sent them the information on the common path, but he had found out before, when he was first examining the splinter’s destructive path.
He has made himself a killing worm traveling throughout the ages. I have seen this done by a mage, but no Carpathian has ever done so. Dragomir’s voice was mild, a deference to Charlotte’s failing body.
These vampires have mixed with mages. That was Siv. He, too, spoke softly, including Charlotte on the common path.
We grew up with Xavier’s father. He knew more than his son could ever know, Val said. His voice hitched just that little bit but enough for Tariq to know the out-of-body experience was costing him.
His name was Alycrome. As he reassured Charlotte, Dragomir and the other two hunters continued to take down the safeguards around the splinter. He had no problems teaching those of us who liked to learn. I sat at his knee when I was no more than four. I was but twenty when he showed us how to splinter off and send pieces of who we were into others.
Siv took over the instruction, murmuring all the while they spread healing light throughout Charlotte’s body and yet still kept patiently taking down the layered safeguards.
Alycrome told us no man had the right to take over another unless it was self-defense, survival, or saving the life of another. Putting a shadow of one’s self into another is a form of aggression. A strike to take over that person and render them a puppet to one’s will.
Tariq’s arms pulled Charlotte closer as she shuddered against him. He had wondered how Vadim kept the human psychics from being complete puppets, needing flesh and blood to survive, yet still kept them under his control. Splinters. Vadim was using splinters of himself, small shadowy leeches to slip into and feed on the host. Vadim could control thoughts subtly that way. The more inclined the host was to carry out orders, the easier it was for Vadim to take control. He was smart enough to offer each human in his army whatever that man desired most. Tariq sent the information to the others so they would know what they were facing in Vadim’s human army.
The thing one has got to remember about splinters, sisarke, but everyone chooses over the centuries to forget, is what they do to the kuly who is so peje ignorant as to use it, Dragomir continued.
Sisarke is little sister and kuly is literally a worm, a demon devouring souls. Peje is burn or in your language it would be fuck. A very bad term. Vadim is nothing more than a worm, Charlotte, and we will rid you of him for all time. Tariq spoke gently, holding her light in that circle he’d made to ensure she didn’t slip away.
She was no longer fighting to get free; she lay very still, allowing his blood to work through her system, removing all traces of the human she had been and reshaping her as Carpathian. On some level she was aware, very aware, of the spirits of the men inside her body, helping to heal her even as they worked. She was listening, and it was helping to combat the pain and fear of conversion.
Alycrome impressed on all those who would listen that each splinter taken from the creator was a piece of him gone, diminishing