Change is sweeping through the world, as humanity fights for autonomy, discord tears apart the foundations of the vampire order, and dhampirs return to the world after centuries of war between two powerful peoples. Dhampirs, creatures known to heral...
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"Falz!" Meredith Aurion hopped over broken bits of concrete and nearly landed face first in a pile of fallen architecture, but Falz grabbed her arm to steady her. "Thanks," she sputtered as she stabilized herself.
Falz Aurion looked as all of the Aurions did, golden hair, blazing blue eyes, and pitch attire speckled by moons, though his tattered, war-torn ensemble was marred with the injury that had killed him a life. Blood stained the edges of his torn tunic and revealed the stab wound that never healed if the man didn't let it. Falz had yet to find peace and move on in all the years, but he seemed more lingering for his own self-satisfaction than hung up on his past. He was also Meredith's distant relative, a few generations back. Some great, great, great grandfather or something. Vincent hadn't cared to figure it out the last they'd seen of each other.
"The vampire is right," Falz said to Luna, meeting her dead eyes just as tears overflowed them. "Dhampirs are different, so they have a chance. Hope is not lost for your daughter, but living bodies are so upsetting to the balance that they are torn apart by any lingering spirits in the void. Don't ruin your daughter's chance of being with you again by throwing your life away."
Luna searched for some way out of this life only to find Ezra slumped where he'd been left. Turning from the void, she went to him and sank to her knees to wrap her arms around his neck. Luna cried silently into his shoulder, and Ezra sank his hand into her silver hair to hold her back. Vincent had never seen the woman so close to a vampire before. Bearing a child together had changed the veteraned battleground mage into something kinder than she'd been when Vincent still breathed.
Vincent took his eyes off the scene as the specters slipped back from their party once they realized they were not the only ones with power. Vincent was quick to pull an isolation spell from the ground, winding silver threads up and around them in a dome that ended just beyond the void and surrounded the remains of the complex. If the spirits escaped, it would be hell to restore the balance. The lost Aurion souls hit the barrier and hissed before turning back to him with all their rage.
"Can I help at all?" Neil asked, by his side in an instant with Phoenix hugging his shoulders.
His son had never approached him so quickly, and Vincent wanted to tell him that he'd handle this and to rest at ease, but he knew better. Specters were susceptible to magic from their own, but they also could slip through it, and he didn't relish chasing around these deranged mages for hours until he corralled them into the void opening near the alleyways.
"Lend me Phoenix," Vincent said down to him. Neil pinched in his expression as Vincent slapped a specter behind him in the face with lingering silver threads. "Phoenix can feel the weight of the imbalance in this world, which is why he could not return me. If he touches any of these specters it will return them to their realm and lighten the pressure on him." Vincent glanced down Neil's fingers which were still as stone in holding his son against his chest. "Would you like to play a game of tag, Phoenix?" Vincent tried a different angle.
