The demon insect screeched loudly, a column of intense green fire bellowing out from between its jaws. Raziel leapt out of the way just in time, grabbing onto one of the cables that still bound Janos further up, swinging back and froth like a pendulum under he got his balance.
Ishtar did not give him time to recover, directing his beast at him again. Two pincer like legs under its head shot out, stabbing forward and into the stone where moments ago Raziel had just been. Reacting at the last second he had propelled himself off the wall, spiralling with acrobatic grace until he came down over the side of the monster. With a crunch his talons bit into the tough exoskeleton and held him there.
Meanwhile Vorador was almost frantically pulling on the cable, inch by inch hauling his half comatose sire up to safety. Raziel kept an eye on his progress, knowing that he would have to keep Ishtar distracted until they were safely out of the way.
“You must think me utterly simple to believe this all a random series of events!” The leader of the House of Faith spat down at him, his demon twisting up and down to dislodge its second passenger.
Raziel clung on with his talons sunk in as deep as they would do, the rest of him being flung above like a reed in a typhoon. The insect hissed at him, arching back with its mouth opening wide so that he could see down its tooth ridden throat.
Quickly Raziel scrambled up, clutching onto a ridge of exoskeleton to hoist himself out of the way of the snapping maw.
“You killed Shamash, you murdered Marduk and now you come for my head.” On the creatures head, Ishtar lifted both arms wide, fingers outspread. “I know who it is you bend your knee to!”
Raziel only had a moment to move out of the way, his experience in fighting Ishtar before at the pillars coming in handy. Instinct told him to move and he leapt away just in time as Ishtar projected his soul at him, shooting forth like a bolt of lightning. He avoided the brunt of the force but the attack burnt the tips of his wings as he tumbled past.
With a gesture, Ishtar commanded his creature to slam its side into the wall of the Ziggurat. The blow nearly knocked Raziel clear and the blue wraith held on by a one hand. Quickly he began to climb back up, passing up its far side so that its bulk sheltered him from the blasts Ishtar might discharge at him.
With a growl of effort, Vorador hoisted up the cable a finally time and Janos Audron came limply up over the edge of the precise. Sally caught the ancient vampire in her arms as her sire set to pulling the cables off his ankles, freeing Janos from bondage. He had been so starved that his rib cage stood out in relief and his skin had dry flaky quality to it, peeling in places. His feathers were even turning grey and a few of them were dropping loose over the stone floor.
“Sire!” Vorador began in earnest dismay, kneeling down before the blue skinned ancient and holding him by the shoulders. “Can you hear me?”
Janos lifted his head, mouth parted slightly in an expression devoid of any response. It was like he was a walking corpse, emotionless and flat.
But then some measure of recognition came back into his eyes and he slowly reached up and placed a hand on Vorador’s chest.
“My son.” He said in a horse voice. “You came back for me.”
Sally happened to be watching Vorador’s face at that moment she noticed something there she had never seen before. She watched Vorador’s careful control of his emotions slip and his expression displayed all the pride and relief he was undoubtedly feeling.
The moment past briefly and her sire was quick to collect himself again, becoming impassive and controlled.
“Yes, my sire.” He said in as best a neutral tone he could manage. “I would not resign you to such a fate as this as long as you draw breath.”
Janos hung his head again, the effort of pushing past his tortured exterior even for a moment having taken its toll. Sally held him up; checking him over quickly to gauge how much strength was left in him.
“He needs to feed badly, sire.” She said to her sire. She looked up but Vorador was looking out at the far wall of the Ziggurat, where the demon insect was sprawled. It was curving back and forth over the surface, twisting around to try and get at the blue wraith steadily making his way up its back.
Ishtar had remained in place on top of the head of the creature, directing blasts of energy from his own soul at Raziel whenever he had a clear shot. Raziel was narrowing the distance between them slowly but steadily.
Ishtar did not appear alarmed in the slightest, as well he might not. The odds were stacked heavily in his favour. With the Nexus Stone there was no way Raziel could hurt him and it was only a matter of time before the Ziggurat’s song culminated and it sang its serenade of death all over Nosgoth.
Even if by some flux Raziel did manage to get close enough to kill him, the Ziggurat’s purpose would be fulfilled regardless.
Even while trying to climb around the insect and avoid the attacks from Ishtar, Raziel desperately began to look for some means of stopping this doomsday scenario.
“Only she could have arranged this!” Ishtar carried on, capturing his attention suddenly. The Hylden priest was starting down the neck of the centipede, one hand raised out before him claw like. “The princess played you like a fiddle. You are little more than her assassin!”
Raziel grabbed onto an edge of a section of exoskeleton and using the beasts own momentum, propelled himself out of the way of Ishtar’s blast. Even as he tumbled the blue wraith cuped his hands and focused a bolt of telekinetic force between his talons, unleashing it directly at Ishtar’s head.
The Hylden contemptuously slapped the bolt out of the air with a wave of his soul energy but that momentary distraction had given Raziel an opening. He leapt forward and threw himself at Ishtar, talons outstretched.
The Hylden was too quick to be caught completely off guard and so the two of them grappled together, talons locked around fingers as they tried to out do each other.
“Damkina uses you, boy!” Ishtar snarled; his lips pulled back over his teeth beneath his red cowl. “She uses you as a means to an end!”
Raziel clenched his talons around Ishtar’s hands to prevent him from using them to grasp the Nexus Stone, pushing him backwards towards the edge of his demon. But Ishtar was not powerless and retaliated with a focus burst of his soul, a shockwave that threw Raziel back and almost over the edge of the worms’ head.
“But she will not stop me!” Ishtar continued, sounding a little out of breath. “I will succeed where Hash’ak’gik failed! It was I who saw the greatest weakness of the vampires and how to use it against them! It was I who conceived the greatest traits of the curse of agony, the touch of the divine, Immortality!
I will purify this world; cleanse it of all life starting with the descendants of our hated enemies!”
Raziel tried to pull himself back up but in that same moment Ishtar laid a finger against the orb at the centre o the nexus stone, calling upon its mysterious powers. Instantly Raziel felt the strength of his very being bleed out of him. It was just the same as before, that horrible sensation of his essence being drained away into nothingness. He gasped out load in dismay, trying to hold onto the edge of the exoskeleton but his strength was slipping away so rapidly.
Ishtar walked closer and the nearer he came the more pronounced the effects of the stone became, the energy that sustained Raziel’s body and essence sliding out of him like water down a drain.
Unable to hold on, he felt his talons slacken their grip and he fell. Dropping he tumbled back from the insect, falling towards the abyss of darkness far below.
He would have plummeted straight to the bottom had not Vorador caught him, latching onto him with a strong hold of telekinesis. The ancient vampire stood on the edge of the stone platform, hand outstretched forward him, palm up, Raziel had stopped falling just at the same level as his hand.
Quickly Raziel was brought to safety, floated down until he was deposited firmly on solid ground. This strange uncharacteristic and magnanimous gesture complete, Vorador quickly drew the cruelly barbed sword at his hip and turned to confront the leader of the Hylden house of Faith.
“You are no better than the zealots of the Wheel of Fate who butchered your kind in eons past.” He said in a flat tone, his stance hostile. “I will not speak for the rest of the Hylden, but YOU deserved your banishment.”
Ishtar glared down at him, eyes narrowing in angry silts beneath his red hood. Instead of arguing he simply raised both hands high.
“Children of the void!” He called out and his voice echoed far more than it should, even in the cavernous structure of the Ziggurat. “Come! Your master beckons!”
The centipede demon on which he stood reared up as if moving out of the way, arching back like a coiled snake ready to spring at a moments notice.
Suddenly all around them there were bright green flashes of light. Holes were opening in thin air, torn gaps in the fabric of reality through which came shafts of bright sickly green light. Pushing their way out of these many holes can demons, dozens of them in all shapes and sizes.
Mostly they were of the small, green scaled variety with blades for forearms and a wide gaping mouth. A few however burst forth, sparking with bolts of electricity that gathered between their pincer like hands.
They were frenzied, tearing at each other before even one of them so much as noticed the four beings crouched on the stone walkway with them. These demons must have been Ishtar’s personal attack dogs, starved to make them more vicious and intent on tearing open whoever Ishtar directed them against.
Vorador glanced right and left, seeing that they were cornered on both sides. To the left a tall lightning demon with its horns dragging along the top of the stone ceiling was edging closer, electrically charged saliva dripping from its maw.
To the right was an equally tall creature with pale red skin and thick bulging pouches on its shoulders that vented puffs of green gas that stung the nose with their stink.
 “Kill them all!” The Hylden priest declared, pointing at them with a long bone thin finger.
The lightning demon screeched, let off its lease and started forward. Vorador’s answering blow was so swift it blurred, his sword dancing up and then across; slicing up through the exposed rib cage to the collar bone before the skin split apart. A fountain of blood geysered forth before Vorador kicked the beast in the chest, knocking it back over the edge of the abyss letting it fall away.
From behind, the gas demon started forward blowing its deadly acidic smoke out before it. Sally swing away from the mist, standing protectively over the near comatose Janos Audron and the limp Raziel beside him.
The demon reached for her with bend elongated claws but she racked it across the arm with her talons. It drew back and Sally was given some room to manoeuvre.
Raziel watched from his half crotched position below as she, strangely, began to draw her claws across her own forearms. She cut herself deep, blood leaking out through the slashes to trickle down her scaled skin.
Then she began to move, lifting her arms to either side and the blood that flowed from her wounds shifted with her; moving like an entranced snake. Whipping her arms forward she directed the blood she wielded at the demon.
Raziel belatedly realised that she was using an advanced form of the rare vampiric ability known as ‘Blood Gout’, the technique of using ones own blood as a weapon. Kain had once used a weaker version of the same ability but had abandoned the technique as too costly and impratical.
Sally displayed her use of the trait with the skill of an accomplished practitioner, her blood turning into blades of scarlet that sliced through the demons in her way. As they cleaved through the flesh of these creatures they siphoned off the blood that spilled forth, carrying it away from the wounds to flow back into Sally’s own body. She was feeding as much as fighting.
But the two of them were fighting a loosing battle, for as many demons they cut down, another two seemed to take their place.
It was only through sheer force of will that Raziel managed to push himself back up, struggling every inch of the way until he stood on legs that threatened to drop out from under him at any moment. He could feel the insidious draining effects of the Nexus Stone intensify in response to the effort he exerted. He countered with more strength, calling on reverses he didn’t know he had.
Before he could move, Ishtar’s giant demonic insect burst forward and grabbed him in its jaws. He was snapped up by the huge mouth and lifted away, the hooked teeth closing down on him. The insect tiled its body up, hoisting him high into the air so the gaping max leading down a sticky throat that spat flames up at him was directly below him threatening to engulf him.
“Goodbye, my saviour.” Ishtar sneered condescendingly, laying a hand on the stone at his breast. At that touch the draining affects of the stone grew, stronger and stronger. Desperately Raziel held onto the lip of the beast with both his hands and feet, trying to keep the mouth open through sheer physical force.
For a terrible, soul chilling moment Raziel felt himself slipping, loosing the struggle with the stone.
“..Raziel…” Janos breathed and he blinked. In that action part of his haze seemed to fall away and his face became reflective, thoughtful and collected. In that moment he was himself again.
As he looked upon Raziel on the verge of plunging into the gaping mouth, his eyes filled with alarm and rage.
“Raziel!” He yelled, vaulting forward straining his deprived body. Ishtar looked around in alarm as suddenly Janos flew up from the stone platform with his wings spread. Even while struggling not to fall Raziel turned his head to look in surprise as well.
“No! I will not let him fall again!”
Audron flew at the priest and struck him on the chin with a clenched fist, the blow knocking Ishtar back several paces. Janos did not give him change to recover, grabbing him by the throat with one hand and tearing at him with the talons on his free hand.
“Get off me, you feathered monster!” Ishtar growled, striking back at the winged vampire in his face. The two of them struggled, wrestling back and forth on top of the monsters head. The creature, evidentially confused, turned around to try and see what was happening and began to close its mouth.
Raziel used the opportunity to vault out from between its lips, hanging onto the creature by the edge of its crested head. With Ishtar distracted by a direct attack the effects of the stone had been negated, all the sapped strength slowly but surely returning to his body. Still the after effects left him groggy and disoriented. Still he had enough wit and strength left to pull himself up onto the head in time to see Janos lashed out and grasp the front of Ishtar’s clothes. At the same time Ishtar kicked him in the stomach. With a sharp jerk Janos was thrown back, wrenching free a cascade of bright golden jewels and red fabric.
But tight in his grasp was the Nexus Stone itself.
“The stone!!” Ishtar snarled; his voice hoarse and shrill. Janos tumbled away, crashing into the stone platform on the far side of the Ziggurat. “Give me that back, Audron!”
Before he could direct his worm to go after the winged vampire, a hand laid itself on his shoulder. He shot a stunned look back over his shoulder.
“I think not, Ishtar.” Raziel remarked coldly, the grip of his talons quite firm. With the stone out of the way this was now an even playing field.
Slowly the Hylden priest’s expression turned to a savage snarl, his calm demeanour finally broken. That afforded Raziel no small degree of satisfaction. “Now then… let us see how confident you are against me without the stone’s power to hide behind.”