A Shade of Vampire 90: A Ruler of Clones - Bella Forrest Page 0,38
bumped into the incoming clones, we’d already gone invisible, hiding between the glass houses as the grunts ran past us and toward the fight we’d just left behind. There were enough shadowy nooks and dark corners for us to move around undetected. Myst and Regine were putting on a flashy show behind us, their light cutting through the empty, starless sky.
“What in the world do we do now?” Jericho asked as we stopped on the edge of the extension, overlooking the dark waters of this false ocean with its false waves crashing against the heavy black iron of this equally false platform with false glass houses. Absolutely everything here was fake, and it was pissing me off.
“We find our friends,” I replied, gritting my teeth. I’d had enough of it all. Enough of Brandon’s murky allegiance. Enough of the clones and the weird devices and the unknown agendas. Enough of the Berserkers and their shadow beasts and weird third eyes. Enough of everyone and everything, Valkyries included. Our lives had been torn and tossed and plunged into chaos, and we couldn’t even save our friends without running into one form of trouble or another. Yeah, I was tired and angry. Fed up. “We find our friends, and then we keep forging ahead with the mission. We get to the truth, and then we stop these bastards from doing anything else to mess with our world and our people.”
“I wholeheartedly agree,” Thayen said.
Mom cursed under her breath as a throng of clones darted past the glass house, catching up with the others who’d gone after Myst and Regine and the Berserkers. I could hear the clanging of blades from here. It was loud and sharp, cutting through my soul and making my skin prickle.
We took advantage of the chaos outside and started opening the door to every glass house in our path. Not all the doors were locked, but we didn’t have time to inquire why, assuming that HQ relied on security and the Berserkers to keep their assets in place. We startled those inside—clones of our witches and scientists—none of whom had enough speed of thought to put on red lenses. Where the doors wouldn’t open, we smashed the locks or broke the windows to look inside, still searching for our friends. As we moved further down the extension, the noise from the Valkyries and the Berserkers grew fainter, but I still heard the shouts and the screams, the splashing of doppelgangers being thrown into the water.
“They have to be here,” Jericho whispered as we continued with our search. “They have to.”
“We’ll find them,” I replied, still firm in my beliefs and driven by a surging determination to survive. Moments later, I opened another door, and a clone jumped on me. It was a copy of Corrine, only she seemed… incomplete. Baring her teeth and hissing like a wild animal, her features were smudged as if someone had wiped her prominent cheekbones and bright eyes with a sponge, leaving only faint impressions behind.
“Astra!” Thayen managed, but I shot the witch-clone with my pulverizer weapon. Silvery ashes settled on me. I huffed and puffed and coughed some of it off, but I got back up, and we went on with our search. We didn’t waste our pulverizer pellets, using them only where needed. I realized that the witch-clone from earlier had jumped at the door, not me specifically. The creatures that were held here must’ve been dazed, and with the violence currently unfolding around them, I imagined they’d be confused and desperate to get out.
“They have to be here,” I murmured, mostly to myself, five minutes later. We were still pushing doors open and bumping into dazed doppelgangers who couldn’t even see us. “They have to…” I took a moment to look at Thayen. He was getting better with his glamoring—or at least his recovery periods were getting shorter. I hoped he’d be able to do more, soon enough. I would’ve liked a proper spirit-bender to help us with the powerful Berserkers, at least.
We spread out, each of us taking a glass house along the way until finally I heard Isabelle’s frightened squeal and my mom’s cry of pure joy, followed by laughter. It must’ve been weird for Isabelle and the others to have their souls “checked” without even seeing Mom. By the time Thayen, Jericho, and I reached her, she was inside another unit, visible and with her arms thrown around a groggy Isabelle who’d just gotten out of bed.