Ghost woke with a screech of pain, shoving near everything off the storeroom table as he came to. Panic set in as he recalled the blade slicing through his face and out the back of his skull, and he scrambled to stand. His legs gave out and tears filled his eyes as he slammed his hands on the table, breaking it straight through before his fists crashed into the foundation. The room shook but it was on the outer edges of Talamayas' ground level castle, so there was no risk to the structure here. Still, he had to temper his emotions. This level of hysteria would get him nowhere.

Thankfully, Talamayas was not here, as he'd insisted on doing reconnaissance during the daytime when Ghost could not accompany him. Some time-sensitive lead on Wren's whereabouts. If Talamayas had seen Ghost wake this way, he'd fall apart. Talamayas could not handle losing Stone after just learning he was alive again, especially not with Wren gone. Ghost couldn't handle it either.

Deep breaths.

The action did not do the same for a vampire as a human, since vampires did not require respiration, but filling his body with oxygen confused his body enough to calm the trembling. The vampire functions expelled the unnecessary compound, silencing everything around him as he tried to put himself together. Pyre still needed his help, even if Ghost was unsure if he himself would live out the day. It was in that harrowing silence that he felt it.

His connection to Stone, a voice calling to him.

Since the day Rastos had dragged Stone into the void, their connection had been severed, but now, he could feel it again. It drove him from his room out into the desert to a dead spot in the anti-magic, and he transported himself into the Cinder's temporary lodgings. No one was home, which was best for him, as he was weak in the daytime and did not have energy to communicate much. Without Stone needing his life force to stay awake, at least Ghost could manage on his feet.

The closer he came to where Stone had fallen, the thicker the grip on his other half felt, as if Stone was pulling him forward with an arm, calling to him with that soft voice, and trailing his fingers into his very soul with need for his presence. It persisted until Ghost stood over Stone's corpse, but he couldn't see it, not really. The call to his other half was so strong that Ghost used it to ground his spiraling thoughts as his soul reached for Stone's. Stone was here, just beyond a veil that he needed to push back.

Ghost had felt this once before. When Stone's body had refused to allow vampire blood to control him, he'd slipped into death but screamed for Ghost to save him. That time, as well as this, Stone had needed Ghost's blood to revitalize him, to drag him out of the pits of death, and Ghost would give him every drop if necessary. Wedging one of his short blades into the artery in his arm, he wrenched it over where Stone's face should have been. Dark magic pulsed at his feet as the blood soaked into Stone's fallen body, absorbing into his skin even when he had no mouth to drink it. A howl screamed from the place of Stone's death, one Ghost knew well as the void cried out for the soul Ghost was stealing away.

The screech grew until it was deafening, but Ghost didn't much care as the small nerves in his ear popped like squished grapes. Blood dripped down the side of his head, and the only thing Ghost could focus on was Stone's body rising from the ground, lifted by ghastly hands as flesh and bone reformed into the smooth features of his face. Tears poured from Ghost's eyes as the final peace of his existence snapped into place, Stone's mind reaching out and connecting with his in their perfect joining that he'd craved for years.

The ghastly hands of the void dropped Stone onto him, and his brother wrapped him in an embrace strong enough to crush bones. Tears filled both of their eyes, and Stone kissed him on the cheek in the opposite spot that Ghost did him. Their instincts for each other were in sync even before they joined within their shared mind, and Ghost loved that just as much as being with Stone. They had little time to enjoy the pleasure of being one again though.

"Pyre," Vice said aloud with both bodies, his first word as a whole man again, and he took off down the street of the desert town.

Whatever fight had transpired, it had been one sided. Pyre's light magic was weak, but Vice could sense it in one of the more isolated alleyways. From atop an adobe, he got the first glimpse of the man he's failed to protect, and it wasn't good. Flaming hair much like Helia's waves curled around the dhampirs' heads and blocked Vice's line of sight. Cinder magic coursed from them much more strongly that it did from Pyre who sat on the ground slumped against the wall. Pyre's listless eyes stared into the sands as the only indication of consciousness, and a gash ran his shoulder to near Pyre's heart, leaving his dominant left arm immobile. All that kept Vice from despair was the weak beat of his heart.

Pyre was yet dead.

"Back away from him," Vice said, both his voices promising death to the dhampirs as they left Pyre's hunched-over body to face a new opponent. Of course, they didn't move enough to give Vice space to rescue Pyre, but they at least pointed their blades toward him. The one who'd cornered them at the door had a curved blade almost like a sickle and the other danced moons of black magic around him as he moved.

"I cut your head off." The unnamed dhampir with light magic said, tapping his curved blade on his thigh as he tried to process how he could possibly be alive. "And you have a pair? Are you twins like us? Though clearly you only have vampire blood. Why are you defending a Cinder of all people? Don't you know they want all of our kind dead?"

"You're quite chatty," Vice said with no emotion. It was easy to slip back into the calm they had prior to being separated. As one, they were strongest, and Vice's shivers of pleasure from being whole again were muted by Pyre's condition. He needed to incapacitate these two so he could get Pyre to a healing mage.

"Side effect of living in isolation," Agni said, his sharp Cinder eyes examining him far more predatorily than the other. This twin was more focused on their demise, while the other was eager to kill them. For twins, they were quite different, unlike him and Stone. They were one. And that would be the dhampirs undoing.

"Relinquish Pyre and leave, and you may do so in one piece," Vice's threat did little as the two remained standing like they were here for nothing but a verbal showdown.

These two feared nothing, and while the confidence was based in their strength, much of it was naivety. If Vice faced an opponent that put their head back on, he would not be lounging with his blade hanging at his side and his guard down. All that kept Vice from rushing the light magic wielding dhampir was Agni's focus on protecting his less prepared brother.

Of the two, Agni was the real danger.

They hadn't time to linger in this standoff, and Vice knew they would not strike first. One of them was barely paying attention and the other was too intelligent to show his back. That left it to Vice, and he tossed Stone's short blades to him. Since he'd lost his other half, Ghost had kept them close, and they felt like an additional appendage as he held them at the ready. Agni arched an eyebrow at their presence.

"Metal?" The vampire murmured to himself, unsure why he used a weapon that was not mage forged. They would find out soon enough.

Ghost rushed Agni, pushing him back with a flood of dark magic in the form of blades, but the dhampir danced back and filled the air with deadly, spinning half-moons. Their magic collided to cancel each other out, but Stone was already on the weaker of the two dhampirs. Before Stone got far, the dhampir raised light raised in defense to wall himself away from them.

How passive.

"Alev, stay close!" Agni commanded, seeing the space between them, and they closed ranks in an instant.

Their grouping had Stone doing the opposite, circling the pair to get the best vantage point. Agni kept his brother close so they could fight back to back, removing most points of weakness, but that in itself was a failing. Ghost and Stone didn't need to be close to cover their weak points. There was no way to separate him, since he was one man.

Ghost took advantage of their position and swirled his magic around them to strike out at the weaker of the two, but he raised his shields just as quickly. Agni struck back with half-moons, and when he bored of that, he formed up his mage weapon from the ground. Chains attached to a staff slipped from within Agni body coming from within, as any mage weapon did, and colliding with the sands. Vice gave him distance immediately as he assessed its threat.

A ranged weapon. Chains came from both ends of a solid staff, using magic to strike out with small blades, and Stone skipped down the building as Agni focused him first. With their difference in clothes, the vampires could tell which of them they'd beheaded and who was new, but the identifiers mattered little. With their minds joined, one body was as strong as the other. Only inside, Ghost was weaker from giving his blood, but they would not know that from his expression nor movements.

The pair was done playing, and Agni left his brother's side, spinning the weapon at his back. Chains flailed in the air, cutting the winds resistance with blades that clawed the ground and gouged the barren buildings around them. Agni aimed his weapon like a whip and it snapped with each connection, difficult to dodge if his opponent could see only one end, but Vice had four eyes to focus on each side and predict its trajectory. It kept Vice mobile as he searched for a way to take out the weaker brother, and Alev did not stand idle.

Flames lit in the air, white as snow and falling like leaves, but they spun with the chains, blown and funneled by the force of Agni's power. The first one made contact with Ghost's skin, and his sight blackened. By the time he regained it, Agni was in his face with a smirk, but Stone met him there, throwing Ghost out of the flurries and kicking Agni straight in the face. On the ground, Ghost examined the spot on his arm. The flame had melted his flesh without affecting his clothes, so they targeted dark magic. That made Ghost useless unless they could stop the flow of light magic from Alev.

It was a good set up. Agni was better suited to close combat and more focused on the battle while Alec specialized in shield and area magics, protecting himself while supporting his brother. Their shared blood protected Agni from Alev's light magic even though dark magic flowed through his veins. It was similar to how Stone was unaffected. Though he exuded dark magic, it was only because he consumed it. Stone ran on the power of the void which cared little if light magic grazed it. Ghost was the only one of the four here who could not stand up to light magic, something he had to rectify if they had any intention of winning.

Ghost needed Pyre.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Word Count:  2024