Chapter Thirty-One: The War of Clan Annihilation

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The shadow of death soon faded. Norris fell silent, and Christina returned to her coffin. We had no idea what to do but wait. Broken Bell was unharmed, yet I could not understand how he had become a vessel for the Pale Bride.

Perhaps, just as Typhon and Missouri could control humans, the Pale Bride’s necromancy could control even the undead.

I asked, “How do you feel, child?”

Broken Bell said, “I can’t feel anything.”

“Do you know what happened? She was crawling out of your body.”

“It was as if I ceased to exist in an instant, and she occupied everything.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry.”

Lamia said, “No one could have expected this. Norris was caught off guard as well. It wasn’t your fault.”

“My very existence is a mistake.”

We all shouted together, “Stop dwelling on such nonsense!”

It was not until nightfall that Typhon awoke. She already knew everything. She appeared composed, but I knew the anger within her was nearing the boiling point.

“Cappadocius!” Typhon snarled.

All at once, she seized Broken Bell by the throat and slammed him against the wall. He could only resist with netherfire, which enraged Typhon even further.

In a frigid voice, she said, “Do you know how I usually deal with traitors?”

Broken Bell stared at her indifferently, as though the body she held did not belong to him.

I leveled the fishbone gun at Typhon’s heart. “Let him go.”

Lamia did not stop me, seemingly approving of my action.

Typhon said, “Longinus, this is unlike you. Do you truly think you’re my equal?”

I replied, “This is unlike you, too. You don’t know the full extent of my strength, yet you dare threaten my friend’s life?”

Typhon released Broken Bell, and I lowered the fishbone gun. My gamble had paid off. I knew that the vampires of Typhon’s lineage understood compromise better than humans did. After all, they had spent centuries manipulating power and mastered every manner of political intrigue. She would never create an unnecessary enemy, nor abandon a valuable ally.

She summoned Norris, and he appeared once again behind Wenling.

Typhon barked, “Why is someone of Cappadocius’s blood here? I heard the Giovanni had slaughtered them all!”

Norris looked timid, more like a servant than a duke of equal standing. He answered, “I remember her. Yes, I remember now. It was her!”

“Who is she?”

“Malacheni. She is Cappadocius’s daughter.”

A question immediately arose: Who exactly was this Cappadocius they kept mentioning?

“She’s still alive?” Typhon asked.

Norris sighed. “She died. I bound her to a stake and burned her alive with my own hands. She couldn’t possibly still—”

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It seemed our Norris had committed his share of heinous deeds as well.

Typhon said, “Now both Seal Stones are gone. Give me a suggestion, Norris, or I’ll let you experience my wrath.”

Norris remained silent for a long while before finally saying, “Fortunately, Miss Christina grievously wounded Malacheni. She will certainly need time to recover.”

“Is she working with Ambrosia?”

“Impossible!” Norris cried hastily. “When she died, Ambrosia and I were both her executioners! She must have sensed the emergence of the Seal Stone at the same time as Ambrosia, and acted independently. They could never have joined forces.”

Typhon sneered. “You two are the most incompetent executioners imaginable. She never died at all, and she has been playing us like fools.”

Norris lowered his head in shame. “We were all mistaken. Over the years, we learned only the superficial arts of necromancy. We studied corpses, while Cappadocius sought the soul. Their knowledge is far more profound than ours.”

At that moment, Christina appeared inside the vehicle.

“We must obtain at least one Seal Stone,” she said. “Are there any left?”

“I need to analyze the stars,” Norris replied, “but the opportunity has already passed. I could have used the stone we obtained to locate the next one, but the stone has also…”

The Mask suddenly pointed at Broken Bell.

“Perhaps Brother Broken Bell has a clue.”

“Me?” Broken Bell asked.

“He is an undead creature, not an ordinary corpse. Even the Pale Bride had to pour an immense amount of will into occupying his body. In that brief instant, she must have left behind a deeply buried imprint.”

Norris pondered for a moment.

“There’s a chance. There’s a chance! Through the netherfire, we may be able to track Malacheni. Even if we cannot, we may discover what she was thinking at the time.”

Broken Bell sighed. “What do you intend to do?”

“When the moonlight falls, child, cast aside every distracting thought and let me read your mind. Reveal your netherfire.”

Broken Bell looked deeply reluctant. He glanced at me, and I nodded. Trusting me, he said, “All right.”

We went outside the vehicle. Some black water welled from Wenling’s cyst. It writhed and spread, growing like a plant. Suddenly, it burrowed into Broken Bell’s finger. Even he, whose senses were numb to pain, seemed to feel agony.

Thirty minutes later, Broken Bell spat out the black water.

“I couldn’t track Malacheni,” Norris said, “but I know where she hid the Seal Stone.”

Typhon said, “Get in the vehicle. We have no time to waste.”

“Counting the one she just took, she now possesses two Seal Stones. But she did not carry both with her. One of them is hidden in the ruins of a city a day’s drive from here.”

“Does she have other accomplices?”

“Strangely enough, yes. Other vampires, perhaps humans she converted after awakening.”

“Find me a way to kill her,” Typhon said. “We cannot let her escape again.”

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“Understood,” Norris replied.

He slipped back into Wenling’s body, and Wenling, exhausted beyond measure, fell weakly asleep.

Outside the window lay a pitch-black night. Younai looked like a gigantic revenant wandering through the land of the dead.

I asked, “Your Grace, can you explain this whole Cappadocius business? I’m completely lost.”

“The history of the vampires is exceedingly ancient, nearly overlapping with the history of humanity,” Typhon said. “Across the long river of time, many bloodlines have vanished. Cappadocius was one of them.

“They were called spirit mediums. Their ancestor, Cappadocius, was a Third Generation vampire—one of the Antediluvians.

“Thousands of years ago—no, perhaps tens of thousands—Cain sought knowledge of death. He brought his childe Enoch before a priest of death and ordered Enoch to turn the priest into a vampire. That priest was Cappadocius. He became a highly esteemed scholar in the empire Cain founded.

“Vampires exist between life and death. I do not know whether Cappadocius drew inspiration from that state, but his necromancy grew ever more powerful and mysterious. Even Cain could not comprehend the heights he attained.

“Cappadocius was a solitary man. He preferred the pursuit of knowledge to worldly affairs, and so he entrusted the family’s entire enterprise to his childer. His lineage—the Cappadocians—became renowned for necromancy as well. Yet necromancy was, after all, a forbidden art, and even among vampires they made enemies everywhere.

“That hostility never escalated into war. The other bloodlines loathed the Cappadocians, but maintained an outward peace with them.

“It is said that in the sixteenth century, after listening to the advice of his childer, Cappadocius decided to become more involved in human society in order to obtain greater wealth and power. They set their sights on a family of necromancers from Italy. Cappadocius himself turned the head of that family, Augustus Giovanni, into a vampire.

“After that, everything changed. Instead of flourishing, Cappadocius’s fortunes declined even more rapidly. According to the records, there were more than a thousand Cappadocian vampires at the time, making them the largest bloodline of all. Yet internal strife seems to have erupted among them, and vast numbers of Cappadocians mysteriously disappeared. To this day, it remains one of the great mysteries of vampire history.”

“An infiltrator?” I asked.

Typhon and Christina both gave cold smiles.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Typhon said. “The infiltrator was Augustus Giovanni. From the moment he became a vampire, he coveted the deepest secrets of necromancy. He also recognized the tension between Cappadocius and the other bloodlines and decided to exploit it. He was a man of extraordinary intelligence—and for that very reason, exceedingly dangerous.”

“Yet he still died beneath the sword of a wise and mighty queen.”

I had offended Typhon earlier and feared she would settle the score later. I therefore had no choice but to flatter her constantly. Perhaps then she would forgive my slight impertinence.

“A wise man may consider a thousand things and still overlook one,” Typhon said. “The longer one lives, the more chances one has to make mistakes. Cappadocius’s rule endured for several ages, until at last a weakness appeared. Giovanni found the resting place of Cappadocius and devoured the ancestor’s blood and soul. He then launched a bloody and thorough purge of the entire Cappadocian lineage.

“His actions were so swift and decisive that they shocked the vampire world of the time. The Cappadocians were the oldest and most orthodox of the great bloodlines. The other bloodlines believed Giovanni’s actions to be an unforgivable abomination that had to be stopped and punished severely. They swore to exterminate the Giovanni to the last.

“But the Cappadocians had made many enemies and were truly detested. Thus, at the second Council of Elders convened to discuss the matter, the representatives of the various bloodlines reached the most absurd decision imaginable. Not only did they ignore Giovanni’s rebellion, they also signed a treaty refusing sanctuary to any Cappadocian refugees.

“Finally, at the third Council of Elders, Augustus Giovanni himself attended. He even linked arms with those ancient vampires, drinking and laughing with them. The council accepted Augustus Giovanni and recognized his lineage as one of the great vampire families, while the Cappadocians were abandoned. Augustus was thus free to eradicate the remaining Cappadocians without restraint.”

Christina nodded. “This event became known as the Giovanni War. Together with another rebellion that occurred around the same time, it reshaped vampire history. From that moment until the coming of the Apocalypse, those two rising families were among the most powerful forces in vampire society.”

Typhon sighed. “What troubles me most is that when I killed Augustus, he was not extraordinarily powerful. What I mean is, he should have possessed the power of an ancestor. Why, then… why did he fail to display strength worthy of it? Did something go wrong when he devoured Cappadocius’s soul? Had he been bluffing all these years?”

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