The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Lemma the Librarian

The Choosing One

by Jennifer Kohl

The lights stopped. The rock fell to the floor, bounced a couple of times, and rolled under the bed.

Brea turned to face me. There was blood matted in her hair, blood streaking her face, hands, arms. Hragulf’s torso lay on one side of her, twitching and spurting.

Behind me, Mira began to scream.

Brea smiled. She crooked a finger. The blood flowed from her hair and body, the walls, Hragulf, arcing through the air in long streams and passing into Brea’s body. Mira’s scream turned into a choking gurgle and stopped. Quite a lot of blood flowed past me into Brea.

I didn’t want to take my eyes off Brea, but I had to. I risked a quick look behind me just in time to see Mira’s shriveled, exsanguinated corpse hit the carpet.

I turned back to Brea. She smirked. “I know what you’re thinking,” she said. “The answer is yes, but much, much older and much, much stronger.”

I gulped. “What did you do with the real Brea?”

She laughed, harsh and cold and mocking. “Really, Lemma? You can’t possibly be that stupid.” Her eyes got big and innocent. “I’m the real and only Brea.”

Those eyes. Big and blue as the sky, with little golden flecks that sparkled and caught the light. Big and blue and everywhere, so huge, so world-filling, a cloud of dancing golden sparkles all around me, here beneath the bright blue sea.

I could resist, that was allowed now, but what difference would it make? Where could I go? She was everywhere. Every move I made, every barrier I raised, she was there almost before I thought to try. Gently, inexorably, she drew my mind into her embrace, soothing it until it was still.

Brea patted my head. “Good girl. Now, I haven’t eaten a real meal in weeks, and I’m famished! Two of you just won’t cut it, I’m going to need much more. Be a dear and wait here a minute, hmm?” Then she dissolved into a dark green cloud and flowed away.

Distantly, I heard screams. That was bad, for reasons I’d be able to remember if I didn’t keep getting distracted by those golden sparkles. But gradually, they faded. The blue sky-ocean drained away. Reality slowly penetrated—I jerked awake. There were still screams. There still might be time!

I scrambled to my feet and out into the hallway, not even caring I was naked. I ran toward the screams as fast as I could, past corpses too drained to identify, but before I reached the dining hall, they had stopped.

So did I as I reached the hall. There was no sign of Brea, but she had been here. A dozen dead women, shriveled like mummies. I ran on into the hallway beyond, just in time to see the green cloud surround two women whose names I didn’t know. Their screams turned to gurgles just like Mira’s, and then they were gone.

The cloud coalesced back into Brea. As it did, I hurled a fireball at her, hard as I could. It splashed against her naked back—and that was it. She didn’t even break stride as she walked out into the courtyard.

I hurried after her. Maybe in sunlight she’d be weakened enough to—

She gestured, and drew the blood from the guards scattered around the yard, pulling it into herself from a dozen women at once. A moment later, one last guard came charging out of the gatehouse, screaming and brandishing a spear. Brea waved her hand, and the guard flew sideways into a wall hard enough to crack it. Brea made the finger-pulling feature again, and the blood came pouring out of the woman’s armor.

So much for that idea.

Brea reached the castle gates, massive things of wood and metal. She didn’t gesture or pause; they just exploded outwards as she approached them. She walked out of the castle and was gone.

I sagged against the wall. What the FUCK was that!?

* * *

It took a couple of hours to search the castle. No survivors. I took my clothes, my gear, my books, and a few other things I thought might be useful, and then I did one last walk around the place, lobbing fireballs here and there. Burying the girls would take forever, and anyway I was only mostly sure they wouldn’t wake up hungry come nightfall, so this was the best I could do for them.

Then I set up camp just outside the gate and waited.

Iola was the first to reach me. “Lemma!” she shouted when she saw me. “What’s happening!?” I could see Iason puffing up the hill behind her; good, so he’d found her.

Iola grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me. “What happened!? Where is everyone? What did you do!?

Hey, hold on now. I wouldn’t just burn down the castle with everyone inside! I mean, not unless I was really, really mad... Okay, fine, maybe it wasn’t a completely unreasonable conclusion to jump to. “Calm down, Iola,” I said. “I didn’t kill anyone.“

Iola sagged with relief. “So everyone is safe? Where are they? What happened to that Hragulf monster?”

Fuck. This was not going to be fun. It would require tact and care. “Well... no. Everyone’s dead. I just didn’t kill anyone.“

What? You’ve been following along this long, what did you expect?

Yeah, okay, I knew it was the wrong thing to say as soon as I said it. My main clue was Iola trying to strangle me. Fortunately, Iason pulled her off, and I was able to explain.

“You’re sure?” Iason asked when I was done. “I just can’t... Brea, a vampire, this whole time?”

Iola shook her head, tears in her eyes, but she blinked them away. When she looked at me next, they were as steely as Iason’s sword. “Draining half a dozen people at once without touching them, throwing a woman in full armor...” She turned to Iason. “Hematokinesis?”

He nodded. “I’ve heard stories of that, but only the really powerful, skilled, old nobles can do it.“

Iola turned back to me. “You’re sure the courtyard was in full daylight? It wasn’t overcast or in shadow?”

I shook my head. “It was well after sunup, and there hasn’t been a cloud in the sky all day.”

“Shit,” said Iola. “To be that powerful even in full sunlight...”

Iason sighed. “We’re talking really old and powerful, aren’t we?“

It made sense. Brea had managed to keep her power completely hidden from my senses, not dropped a hint of being nonhuman even with monster experts like Iason and Iola around, and picked up a book as powerful as The Rite of Uncreation without so much as a wince. She couldn’t just be any old vamp.

“So... what do we do now?” I asked.

Iola adjusted her sword. “We find her and kill her.”

“Whoa whoa whoa,” said Iason. “Listen, I hate vampires as much as you do, but... Lemma and I were barely able to beat a much weaker vampire. And she knows us! We can’t just... stroll up to her and stab her! I don’t even know if we have any weapons that could hurt her!“

“It doesn’t matter,” Iola retorted. “My friends are dead! Kara, Morwena, Gwennedh, hell, even Mira didn’t deserve this! I should have been there to protect them, and I wasn’t. The least I could do is avenge them.”

“Hey, I get it,” I said. “But Iason’s right. It won’t do any good charging up and getting killed. We need something that can hurt her. We’re not letting her getting away with this, we’re just going to be smart about it. Right, Iason?“

Iason sighed and nodded. “What kind of monster slayer would I be if I let one just walk away after this?”

“Right. So what’ve we got?”

Not much, it turned out. Iason’s sword could hurt anything that drew its life from magic, and Brea certainly qualified, but with the amount of magic she had to play with, it would take a long time for the sword to seriously affect her. Other than that, well, vampires are creatures of darkness and death, so light, fire, and life are the weapons of choice. But she pretty much ignored my fireball; I could pull bigger, but it didn’t seem likely to do more than a flesh wound. And sunlight barely slowed her down. Poking her with a stake seemed like a longshot, too—her skin was probably stronger than Iason’s armor.

What we needed was a powerful, concentrated form of one of her weaknesses. A sun god could probably destroy her, maybe a powerful fire demon or dragon breath. But none of us had any idea where to find a god or a dragon, and even if we were willing to ask Rhoda’s help, by the time we went all the way to Alba and back Brea could disappear completely.

As night fell and the burning castle died down to dull red embers and ash, we still hadn’t come up with anything. Except: “What about that spell?” Iason asked. “That super-powerful spell, the one from the book Brea handled?”

“It could kill her,” I said. “No question.”

“Well then what’s the problem?” Iola demanded. “Do you not know how to do it?”

“I started to read the book a while back,” I admitted. “But I didn’t get very far.” Because it scared the fuck out of me, I didn’t say.

“Well, how long would it take you to learn to cast it?” Iason asked.

“I already know how to cast it,” I answered. The others stared at me, and I sighed. There was no way of getting out without explaining it. “The Rite of Uncreation is one of the simplest, easiest spells I’ve ever seen,” I said. “It takes hardly any power, and a novice could learn it in an afternoon. The first page of the book told me everything I needed to know in order to cast it.“

“Then what’s the problem?” Iola looked confused and a little pissed. I guess I couldn’t really blame her.

“The rest of the book is the problem,” I said. “It’s everything that can go wrong if you fuck up casting it, in order from least bad to worst, and how to adjust the spell if that starts happening. It starts with the caster being instantly killed. I got as far as the spell draining all life force around it, turning every living thing for a hundred miles to ash, and then I gave up. That was disaster scenario twelve. There are a hundred and eight.“

“That’s... bad,” Iason agreed. “It can go that wrong?”

“I barely scratched the surface of how badly it can go wrong. Why do you think nobody casts it, if it’s that easy and that powerful? Practically everyone who’s ever tried just killed themselves, or themselves and their friends, or themselves and their friends and their enemies and everyone else for a hundred miles... Nowadays they just teach us that it exists and to stay the hell away from it, and now that I’ve read some of it, I can see why!”

“So... are you saying you can’t use it? Or you won’t?” Iola asked. I hesitated.

“I... I don’t know. It could be worse than she is.”

“I highly doubt that,” said Brea.

We all whirled to face her. She’d done it again, snuck up on me like it was nothing. Iason and Iola had just enough time to drop their hands to their swords, and I was able to start calling up power. Then Brea lifted her hand, and all three of us floated into the air. My entire body went limp from the neck down.

“I’ve come to offer terms,” Brea said.

“Terms!?” Iola practically screamed in fury. “We’re not going to rest until your head is mounted on a stake, vampire! You’ll pay for what you’ve done!”

Brea looked sharply at Iola. “Hush. I wasn’t talking to you.”

She turned back to me. “Lemma. I will make this offer once: serve me and live. Defy me and die.”

Serve you? What the fuck does that mean?“

Brea smiled. “Exactly what it sounds like. As distasteful as your kind of magic is, we have a use for it.”

We? “I don’t work for murderers!“

Brea waved a hand dismissively. “You work for Lemuria, don’t you? Even a small empire has killed far more people than the most prolific of my kind. Which, I must admit, could plausibly be me.”

Well... okay, that wasn’t completely wrong, but war and executions aren’t the same as—okay, no, not getting into philosophy with a vampire! “Those were my friends you killed!“

Brea examined her nails. “Really? I’m sure Mira wasn’t. Can you name even one of the others?”

“...Those were Iola’s friends you killed!”

Iola made a strangling noise, like she was trying to speak but couldn’t.

“True. But I spared her and her brother. Haven’t you wondered why? After all, I have no need of them.”

...Oh. “Bargaining chips,” I snarled.

“Precisely. I need you to understand that I am serious. So: at nightfall tomorrow I shall return for your answer. If you refuse, your friends will suffer. I shall return again the next night, and if you refuse, your friends will suffer more, until they beg to die. The third night, if you refuse, you will join them.”

“You bi—” I started, but was interrupted by my sudden plummet to the ground. By the time I was back on my feet, she was gone.

* * *

“It just doesn’t make sense,” I said. It was the next morning, after a night of all three of us fitfully trying to get as much sleep as we could, in between turns watching in case Brea came back. Given that she could probably get in and murder us all before whoever was on watch noticed her, and we all knew it, neither job was exactly easy.

“You expect sense from a monster?” Iola asked, looking up from sharpening her sword.

“I mean, sure, she’s terrifyingly capricious, but she’s not stupid. She could have killed Hragulf and used the stone to make do whatever it is she wants me to do, or her own mental powers. Why play this game?”

“You’re assuming she wasn’t lying about wanting your service,” Iola said.

“Sure, but if she doesn’t need one of us for something, why not kill us outright?”

“Vampires are known for playing with their food,” said Iason.

I sighed and nodded. He was probably right, but something didn’t quite fit. Oh well, worry about that later. In the meantime, there was plenty to do. “That power of hers, moving blood and people around. What was it you called it?“

“Hematokinesis,” said Iola.

“Right,” I replied. “Never heard of it, but from the name... some kind of blood magic?” Iola nodded, and I grinned. “Good. Then we might be able to do something about it.”

While I worked on that, Iola and Iason gathered wood and carved some stakes. They probably wouldn’t do any good, but if somehow all the iron-hard flesh and protective magic around Brea’s heart were disrupted, plunging a stake in might be enough to slow her down. Plus I had some ideas on ways to make them a little more effective.

After I finished working on warding us against blood magic and all our other preparations, I pulled out The Rite of Uncreation. It still scared me, and I still didn’t want to do it, but... in a last-ditch emergency, between all of us getting killed by Brea and the risk of all of us plus Brea getting killed by the spell, I’d take the spell. And seeing as I already knew how to cast it, the responsible thing to do was to learn how to cast it as safely as possible.

Yeah, yeah, me doing the responsible thing, I know. Joke all you like, I’m not stupid. For all the times I set people on fire, I never set anyone or anything on fire I didn’t mean to.

Well, not often.

As the sun set, Brea walked into our camp. “Your decision, Lemma?” she asked.

I responded by launching a stake at her with as much wind and force magic as I could get behind it.

It bounced off her chest, and she laughed. Iason leaped out of the undergrowth, swinging his sword at her.

Brea casually flicked a wrist to send him flying with her hematokinesis. “Honestly,” she said. “Did you really think that would woaaaarrrggghh!” Iason’s blow caught her on the wrist and visibly dug in about an inch. The sword began to glow a dull red as it soaked up magic, and Brea shrieked in rage and pain as she pulled her arm back. Her hand flopped loose for a moment, but rapidly reattached itself and healed.

“You’ve found a way to protect your blood,” she said. “Clever little duckies. But I’m afraid this does mean I’ll need to punish you.”

She stalked slowly toward Iason, who held his ground as she approached, sword up in a defensive stance—right up until she was almost upon him, when he threw it at her. Brea laughed and easily dodged aside—which was when Iola caught it and tried to stab her. Brea only barely managed to catch the thrust—literally, on her palm. There was a light sizzle, but nothing like the earlier reaction, and Brea swiped at Iola with her free hand. Iola parried with the sword, and again there was that sizzle, even a little smoke. The sword was hurting her, just not enough!

Iola and Brea exchanged a few thrusts and parries, but then Brea managed to push Iola off balance. She started to fall backwards—and tossed the sword back to Iason, who slashed at Brea’s back with it, forcing her to spin around and confront him.

Which meant her back was to me, Iola was out of the way, and Iason was on the far side. I’d spent the whole time they were fighting gathering as much fire magic as I could, packing it as tight as it would go, and I launched all of it at her in a single fireball the size of marble and bright enough to light up the clearing like day.

It struck her in the back, and she howled as it gouged a clear burn mark in her flesh, red and raw and blackened at the edges. She whirled to face me, snarling, and Iason stabbed her right in the wound.

Her scream left my ears ringing, and she spun violently, catching Iason and sending him sprawling. The sword clattered to the ground, and Iola dove in to pick it up. She sprang to her feet and swung overhand at Brea, who caught the blade in one hand and grabbed Iola’s chin with the other.

I saw Iola’s eyes widen, her pupils dwindling away to nothing as she met Brea’s gaze. So that’s what that looks like from the outside, I thought. Brea dropped Iola a moment later, and Iola advanced toward me while Brea turned to face Iason.

I whistled. Iola showed every sign of being completely in Brea’s thrall even while holding the iron sword. The last time I’d been controlled by a vampire, the spell broke as soon as I touched that sword, so either Brea’s spell was that much more powerful or, more likely, she was skilled enough to make her control last even after the spell faded.

I wasn’t sure which was worse.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” I called out to Iola.

“Good,” Iola replied. “But it won’t stop me from hurting you!”

She rushed toward me, blade outstretched. I tossed a low-powered fireball at her, and she blocked it with ease, but it was enough to break her stride and let me put more distance between us. “You know this isn’t really you! This is her controlling you!”

“I know!” Iola replied. “But it doesn’t matter! I have to.”

I tossed a couple more fireballs to keep her back, but she was closing the distance. I was either going to have to pull out something heavier, or try to fight her hand-to-hand, and I didn’t think I’d stand much chance at that.

A large figure loomed up next to me. “Iason!” I cried. “Took you long enough.”

“Sorry, Lemma,” he said. It took me a split second too long to realize he wasn’t apologizing for being late. He grabbed my arm and pulled me back against him, pinning my arms against my sides as he crushed me in a bearhug.

Iola came up to us, sword raised, but then Brea appeared next to her and gestured for her to stop. “I could have her run you through, you know,” Brea said. “Both of you. I could make Iason crush you to death.”

“But you won’t,” I answered, trying to sound more confident than I was. “You need me.”

Brea sighed. “True. But do I need all of you? For example, do you really need two legs for the service I require?“

“Dunno. Why don’t you tell me what it is you want me to do, and I’ll tell you how many legs I’ll need?”

Brea laughed. “The same bravado as always, I see. Poor little duckie, her bark so much worse than her bite.”

“Uh, ducks don’t bark. Do you... Do you not know what ducks are?”

Brea smiled broadly, her fangs gleaming in the light of a rising moon. “Defy me all you want, little one, but your friends will suffer for it.” She ran the back of her hand slowly down Iola’s cheek. Iola shivered, whether in revulsion or desire, I couldn’t tell. Based on my own experiences with vampires, it could be either—even both.

“If you think torturing my friends will make me more likely to do what you want...”

Brea’s smile somehow got even wider. “Oh, I’m not going to hurt them. Not tonight. I’m just going to make them suffer.“

“What the fuck does that meanmmrrphh—” Iola covered my mouth with hers. My eyes widened, but the back of my head was against Iason’s chest, so there was no way to pull back. My only real choice was to bite her or let it happen, and I didn’t see the point in biting her.

Iola being a really good kisser had nothing to do with my choice, I assure you.

“You love this, don’t you?” Brea hissed in my ear. “I saw it, smelled it before, with that arrogant lordling, my wayward child, and that Hragulf fool. I can smell your arousal now. You kick and scream and deny, but you love being held helpless, love seeing human minds molded like wet clay... The only thing you like more than seeing it done is having it happen to you... but you don’t get that until you agree to serve. Swear to obey me and I will mold you into the sexual puppet you have always craved to be...“

She was wrong, obviously. I didn’t get off on this kind of thing! That was just the sick, twisted fantasy of an inhuman monster. The warm, wet feeling in my panties was just about how good a kisser Iola was.

Speaking of, Iola broke the kiss, and I gasped for air. “I could make them rape you,” Brea said. “I could overwhelm them with desire for you and let you toy with them as you please. I could make them love you. I can do anything to them—and how do you feel about that, my little puppets?”

“Stop this!” cried Iola. “Never—I swore never again. I’ll never be controlled, never be some creep’s sex-toy again! You know that, you m—mo—m—m—”

“Having trouble saying ‘monster’?” Brea laughed.

“M—” Iola struggled, her face turning purple with frustration and rage. “M—mo—mi—Mistress!”

Brea laughed again. “You see, I know what hurts Iola more than any torture ever could. And I know what hurts Iason, forced to stand still and silent while his dear little sister is tormented by a monster like me. And I know what hurts you, Lemma, what scares you, is weakness. You have to always be the strongest and the best, don’t you? Well, I’m stronger than you, better than you, more powerful than you—and I’m taking your toys away.“

Her eyes suddenly filled the world. It happened too fast for me to close my eyes—before I knew what happened, I was lost in that warm, beautiful blue sea, sinking slowly into blissful darkness.

When I woke, it was morning. I was fully rested, relaxed—and alone.

There was no way I was going to wait until nightfall to fight her again. Sunlight might not slow her down much, but it had to have a little effect, and I was going to need every little advantage I could find to stand a chance. After all, if I failed... I didn’t know what making Iason and Iola beg for death entailed, but I imagined it wouldn’t be something they could recover easily from even if I did defeat Brea the next day.

I spent the morning making sure I was properly warded against as much of her magic as I could and reading the last of The Rite of Uncreation. The previous day I’d gotten to the purely theoretical possible failures—things nobody had ever seen the Rite do, but which it might if it went really, really badly awry. So I picked up where I left off: how to (probably) tell when the Rite was about to cause magic to stop working for precisely one-quarter of a second. I shuddered as I imagined what that meant. Every spell being cast at that moment would fail, of course, but that was the least of it. Every building held up by magic would fall. Every enchanted object would lose its power—and when the magic returned, it would have nowhere to go, and just explode outward as a pure manifestation of whatever type of magic it was. And every living thing which depended on magic to live—every sorcerer sustained by age spells, every dragon and elf, every vampire, unicorn, and phoenix—would die instantly, gone forever.

And the book still had eleven pages left. Eleven possibilities even worse than that. But I had to know before I faced Brea, because I wasn’t sure I had anything else which could hurt her.

Although... That thing about interrupting magic did give me an idea that might just work...

I set out after them as soon as I finished the book. Fortunately, Iason and Iola couldn’t glide through the countryside effortlessly leaving no trail, and they weren’t bothering to cover their tracks.

As I searched, I continued puzzling over what Brea could possibly want from me. She’d had me under her control twice already, incredibly easily. She could have made me do whatever she wanted—but she didn’t. Which had to mean that for some reason she couldn’t. So she could manipulate, bargain, even blackmail me with Iason and Iola’s lives... but she couldn’t outright compel me. Whatever it was she wanted me to do, I had to choose to do it. But she’d offered to make me a sex-slave if I agreed to serve her, which meant that one choice was enough—choosing to serve her was as good as choosing to do the thing.

One choice. I remembered something about that, from a lecture long ago at the Academy. A lecture about... Chosen Ones, yes, that was it. People chosen from birth—sometimes before—by a god for some destined task. Guided every step of the way—gifted a magic sword here, “chance” meeting with a wise mentor there—toward whatever it was the god had in mind for them, most never realizing that their every choice had been decided for them from the moment they were Chosen.

I laughed at the idea that that could be me. What god would pick me to do their work? Besides, it was the opposite of what was happening here. Brea wanted me to make a choice, the one thing Chosen Ones never got to do. Besides, she was practically wild magic incarnate, and making a Chosen One was some of the highest of high magic, imposing order onto the entire course of a person’s life. That’s why only gods did it—nobody else could! (Well... Maybe a high-level demon, but that’s really just a god going the other way, so.)

Maybe focus instead on what she wanted me to do. She’d hinted the condition of my body wasn’t that important, and she’d killed Hragulf right when he was about to take away my ability to do magic. Did she need me to cast a spell? That would make sense—high magic is about the one thing that would be completely impossible for her to do on her own. But what spell?

...Fuck. Just like that, everything clicked into place. I knew what spell she wanted from me. I knew why she needed me to make a choice. I knew how badly I’d fucked up.

A few minutes later, I walked into a clearing to find Brea waiting for me at the far end, flanked by Iola and Iason. “I noticed you were following us,” she said. “Come to surrender?”

“I figured out why you’re doing this,” I answered. “I’m a Choosing One, aren’t I?”

She arched an eyebrow, impressed. “I’m surprised one such as you knows of such things.”

“I’ve heard speculations.” The wild magic equivalent—opposite, really—of a Chosen One. Someone who, by random chance, might be in the right place at the right time to make a choice that might alter the course of history. But the whole point of them was choice—being under someone’s thrall would the defeat the purpose, unless I’d chosen to be controlled. “The theory suggests those powerful enough in wild magic might even be able to sense a Choosing One before they appear.“

“Indeed,” said Brea. “That is why I infiltrated Lord Brinksmoor’s manor long before you arrived. I knew you would very likely come.”

“Well... If the choice you wanted me to make was learning the Rite of Uncreation, it’s done. Let them go.” That was why the three days, I realized. She’d probably overheard me saying I wasn’t ready to cast it, so she wanted to make sure I had both plenty of time and a strong incentive to learn it. Three days had to have been a guess on her part—not that far off, all told.

“I’m afraid not.” She looked serious, almost grave (ha-ha, because she’s a vampire, get it?), for a moment. “Something is coming, something terrible, and with it comes a possibility that you will have a choice to make. Choose rightly, and we remain free. Choose wrongly, and an age of iron order shall descend upon the world, crushing us all in its implacable grip. Learning the Rite has shifted the likelihood of you being in a position to make that choice from a possibility to a probability.“

“Swell.”

“We are on the same side in this, Lemma. You wish to surrender the world to a tyrant no more than I do. Make your choice to serve me now, and I will ensure that you make the right choice when the time comes.”

“Hmm, yeah, lemme consider that... I’m gonna have to go with no, and also fuck you.”

“Your friends will die.”

“You promised not to kill them until nightfall!” I began drawing on power—not just fire this time, but air and earth as well.

Brea smirked. “Indeed. I promised I wouldn’t kill them until nightfall. You, on the other hand, made no such promise—and I never promised I wouldn’t command them to fight you to the death.“

Fuck! “Wait!” I said. “Before you do... I have a counteroffer.” I reached down to my belt and unhooked a pouch.

“A what?” Brea seemed genuinely puzzled and surprised.

“Catch!” I shouted, and tossed her the pouch. Power thrummed through me, a living conduit for the immense flow of energy from sky down to earth and then, very soon, in just a moment...

She had to sense the buildup of power. She knew I was attacking. Instinctively, just as she’d done with every attack she saw coming, she caught the pouch, a reflex trained over millennia until it happened without thought, quicker than thought.

...back up from the earth again. Lightning leaped from my outstretched hand, struck the pouch, disintegrated it instantly. The rock inside pulsed with light, once, and then shattered in Brea’s hand.

The rock Hragulf had used to mesmerize me—twice! The rock full of immense high-magical power, broken-off piece of who knew what ancient artifact. Probably something that had been made for a Chosen One, discarded once they, and it, were no longer needed. Point is: I destroyed it.

Leaving the magic inside with nowhere to go, nowhere except exploding outward in its purest form. Specifically, immense quantities of light magic in its purest form: an eye-searing burst of brilliant, white, high-magical, maybe even holy, light, bright enough to—just for a moment—outshine the sun.

Brea screamed as the light engulfed her. “Suck on that, bitch!” I crowed, or tried to. It’s hard to sound triumphant when you’re shielding your eyes from the brightest fucking light in the world.

My vision returned, and my jaw dropped. She was still. Fucking. ALIVE!?

Oh, she was hurt, that much was obvious. She was on her knees, and her right arm and most of the right side of her torso were just gone. Her jaw had been vaporized or blown off, and the right side of her face was a disgusting mess of black burn and exposed red flesh, here and there with bits of bone sticking through. Her chest cavity was wide open, the ribs blasted away completely on the right side. The damage even extended a ways past the spine, though her heart seemed undamaged, pulsing away hanging in the open air, exposed front, back, and right. And she was already healing, flesh knitting itself back together, bones regrouping and regrowing.

Her one eye glared at me with a look that made it completely obvious what order she was giving her thralls: a single thought, the mental equivalent of a howl of rage: Kill.

Iason plunged his sword straight through her heart from behind. She arched her back, screaming, vocal chords or no, scrabbling desperately behind herself with her remaining arm in an effort to grab and dislodge the blade. Energy crackled around her, flowing into the sword, which glowed first dull red, then bright, and finally white.

Iason grimaced in pain as he tried to hold onto it, keep it in her, but she twisted with fantastic strength and sent him and sword both flying.

As soon as she did, though, Iola was on her, leaping onto Brea’s chest and knocking her to the ground. Iola plunged a stake into the hole Iason’s sword had made when its tip emerged through the front of Brea’s heart, and Brea screamed again and flung her off.

And at this point, you’re probably all going, “What the fuck? Why are Iason and Iola attacking Brea? Didn’t she have control of them?”

And you’re right. She did. She just wasn’t the only one.

Flash back to that first day, when we were prepping weapons against Brea. I told you there were some other things I prepped, right? One of them—well, two, really—was Iason and Iola. Iola had been reluctant—extremely reluctant—to do it, and after what happened with Brinksmoor and nearly happened with Hragulf, I couldn’t blame her. But it had to be done, and eventually Iason and I convinced her of that. Brea was strangely reluctant to enthrall me, but we had no way of knowing if that reluctance would extend to them. In case it didn’t, we needed some kind of countermeasure.

The stone turned out to be easy enough to use—it’d have to be for Hragulf to figure it out, right?—and before long Iola and Iason were staring into it, mouths drooping open, eyes glazed. It was simple enough to give them a rule, like the ones Hragulf had given me: “When you hear me say ‘Suck it, bitch,’ you will attack Brea with the best weapons at your disposal.”

There’d been some discussion about the phrase. I wanted something I wouldn’t normally say, to avoid accidents, but easy to remember. “It should be badass,” I’d said. “Something really cool to say after scoring a blow on a vampire.”

“Which is exactly why it should be anything other than ‘suck it, bitch,” Iason said, which is when made a clear and cogent point which settled the argument, to whit, I kicked him in the shin.

The only part I hadn’t been sure about was whether my command with the stone could override her control. Even if it could, I was sure once I’d triggered it, she’d make sure it didn’t work again. That meant I had to use it at the right time—and once I saw how little even Iason’s sword did to her, I knew it would have to wait until she was vulnerable. If I could find a way to make her vulnerable.

Brea screamed again, and clutched at the stake in her heart. She tried to pull it out, and howled in agony. A moment later, it became clear why, as a point on her heart bulged outward and then tore open, letting a slender young shoot which twisted toward the light and sprouted leaves.

I grinned triumphantly. I knew it would work! I’d borrowed a page from the King of Munn, or more accurately from the book I took from him: the stake Iola had used was one I’d enchanted with a spell of transference. I’d reasoned that wild magic or no, whatever kept a vampire’s body moving and healed her wounds had to be some kind of spell—so I enchanted the stake to transfer that spell onto itself. Brea’s own healing powers were bringing the dead wood of the stake back to life—and if wood was a good enough symbol of life to be lethal to a vampire, how much more damaging would a tree growing inside them be?

Getting closer, I could see the runes I’d carved into the stake were glowing and smoking, but the healing magic pouring through them was repairing the stake as it went, keeping the spell intact.

Amazingly, when she saw me, Brea groaned and flailed her way back to her feet. “Kill... you...” she gurgled, and took one lurching step toward me.

Iason sank his sword deep into her remaining shoulder. He struck a second and a third time, until her arm hung limply, and then he began slashing at the backs of her legs. Brea fell to the ground and rolled over.

I took advantage of the better angle this gave me to flood the inside of her chest cavity with fire. I did my best to avoid the stake, but I couldn’t help but catch some of the shoots twisting their way through Brea’s veins. It didn’t matter; the more we hurt her, the more her regenerative powers fought back, and the more the stake drained them from her.

She flailed and shuddered a few more times, but it was over. “I won’t... stay dead... forever...” she hissed with difficulty. “And when... I come... back... you’ll all... be dead... Dead...”

She stopped and sagged. A moment later, she shriveled up, until she looked just like the drained corpses she’d left in Castle Brinksmoor. The only difference was that none of them had a healthy young sapling growing up through the middle of their chest.

I sagged to the ground. “Phew!” I said. Then I looked up at Iason and Iola. “You two aren’t about to kill me or anything, are you?”

They shook their heads. “Her power over us broke sometime while she was dying,” Iola said. “It seems your trick worked.”

“And that was pretty cool making the thing explode like that. Too bad you ruined it with that lame ‘suck it,’ line.”

“Iola,” I said. “I’m too tired to kick him. Can you?”

She sat on the grass next to me. “Normally I would be happy to,” she said, “but if you think you’re tired, imagine how we feel?”

“Yeah,” said Iason. “She was going easy on you, remember?”

I looked down at the corpse lying in the grass between us. “Good thing, too,” I admitted. “If she’d been serious about killing us... I dunno. I just don’t know.”

After a while, I continued, “Do you think she meant it, about coming back to kill us?”

“Probably,” said Iola. “One drop of blood is all it takes to revive a senior vamp. There are ways to make their deaths more permanent, but...”

“Yeah,” said Iason. “With one this powerful, I don’t think burning her heart or chopping her head off or even the garlic-crossroads trick would cut it. We could probably reduce her to dust and scatter her to the winds and, as soon as one fleck of that dust touched blood... fwoosh.”

“Seriously?” I said.

“She must have been thousands of years old,” Iola replied. “Maybe tens of thousands. Certainly the oldest and strongest vamp in these islands, though I’ve heard of still worse in the oldest, blackest forests of the mainland...”

“Point is, she’s probably been staked before, by people stronger than us, and come back from it. She’ll be back from this.”

“Hrm,” I said. “One drop of blood...” I smiled as an idea hit me. “Does it have to be pure blood?“

Iason and I stood on the high cliff once again. Far below, the sea crashed against the sheer face of the cliff, not a bit of shoreline between them. This time, though, Iola was with us.

The three of us swung Brea’s corpse. There was a hole in the middle of her, where we’d carefully cut her away from the tree; I’d used it to pack her full enough of rocks that it would take all three of us to give her a good toss. I wanted to make sure she stayed sunk.

Iola counted to three, and we let Brea fly. At the peak of her arc, I hit her with as much wind and force as I could muster, to shove her that extra bit farther away. She tumbled slowly as she fell, shrinking to a little black dot that vanished into the water.

And there she’d stay, at the bottom of the sea. Sure, some blood might be spilled down there, but it would be diluted with seawater, useless to her. And we’d been very thorough about making sure none of her was left behind when we pulled her out from around the tree. I even worked out a finding spell for bits of her. There were none.

So she would stay at the bottom of the sea. One day, maybe, she’d float ashore, or the sea and land would swap places, and blood would bring her to life again—but that would be hundreds or thousands of years in the future, long after she ceased to be any trouble to us.

“Well,” I said. “Now what?”

“You’re still going to search for books, right?” Iason asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “It’s off to the mainland for me. Question is, are you coming with me?”

“That depends,” said Iason. He held out his sword, hilt-first and still in its scabbard, to Iola. “You killed Brea. Your stake finished her. This has always been rightfully yours—take it.”

Iola reached slowly for the handle, then stopped. “No,” she said. “My friends are avenged... But it doesn’t change that I failed to protect them. Keep father’s sword, brother. I haven’t earned it.”

“Not yet, maybe,” said Iason. He glanced at me, then took a deep breath. “So come with us. That way, when you do feel ready... I’ll be there, ready to give it to you.”

He kept looking at me, like he was worried I would object. I shrugged. Far be it from the squishy wizard to complain about an extra meatshield.

After a while, Iola nodded. “There’s nothing left for me here. I might as well.”

“Great!” I said. “Now let’s go find some food, and then a boat out of these crazy islands!”

As we walked away from the cliff, I thought about what Brea had said. Something coming, she said. A choice between freedom and an age of iron order, or something like that. And me in the middle, with the power to change history. Maybe.

It was a lot to carry. Especially since I only had Brea’s word for which side was the good one—and maybe a vampire’s idea of a good future wouldn’t exactly be the same as mine. But on the other hand... well, anybody can change history, really. It’s just a matter of doing something different. And if I were going to place a bet on the likeliest person to change history, I know my money would be on the beautiful young magical prodigy on a quest. So really... nothing has changed.

Except I’m finally getting out of the Tin Islands. Things are looking up!

Author’s Note: Wow. I’m finally here. 10 years of Lemma, but it’s finally happened: I’ve reached the end of the Tin Islands arc. Do you have any idea how amazing, yet strange, that feels? To have reached the halfway point?

Also: new party member get! It had always been my plan to have Iola join the team for the second half, I feel like she adds an interesting twist to the established Iason/Lemma dynamic.

Originally, Brea was just a minor one-off character. I wanted there two be two named slaves of Lord Brinksmoor in the first chapter, one nice and one mean, and Brea was the nice one. The vampire story would introduce a different ally, who was somehow able to touch the Rite of Uncreation without being vaporized, leading to speculation she was a goddess... only to have her show up at the end of the arc as the final boss, with the reveal that she’d used Lemma to off one of her “children” that was getting too careless. But after false start after false start on that story, I realized the key: the senior vamp was Brea.

As for the Choosing One thing, well, I’ve always felt Chosen Ones are a bit cliche and boring. But the idea of someone whose destiny is to make a choice, now that’s interesting to me. Ultimately it’s still the same kind of Great Man nonsense, but not completely—it’s less about the person’s inherent qualities and more about being in the right place at the right time.

My original plan had been for Lemma to actually use the Rite of Uncreation here, but as I was writing, I realized that I really didn’t want her to. It was a little too The Slayers. Of course, that meant that, after creating a nigh-invincible enemy, I had to come up with a way Lemma could beat her—and that is why I created Hragulf and have him show up with his stone, and then again in the previous chapter, so that Lemma would have it here.