Stone dropped to the ground behind the mimic, and his copy retreated to Pyre's side to force them into another spin of blades and magic. It sought to confuse Stone in case he'd narrowed down which of them was false. Pyre highly doubted that was the case, considering all Stone knew of him was begging at his feet. The mimic would not likely allow the vampire to inspect their ankles for discrepancies.

Even so, Stone pulled two blades from his body, one from his back and the other from his hips as he darted for Pyre and his clone. They both backed a step, but the clone wouldn't flee if Pyre didn't, making it both better and worse for him to stand his ground. On the one hand, the mimic couldn't use him to get away, but on the other, Stone was not slowing as he spun his blades around his hands.

With a twist of his wrist, Stone whipped a blade straight for Pyre's face, and he was barely able to deflect it with a short knife before it impaled anything vital. The force of the toss sliced the blade across Pyre's cheek even as he knocked it away. Pyre was ready to burn the vampire to ashes as he spun around, but he recoiled as he turned into a stream of blood pouring from his mimic's throat. The thing still wore Pyre's face, and watching himself gurgling blood before he slumped into death was harrowing. A knife identical to the one Pyre had cast aside was lodged in the man's skull from below, and Stone stood up fully just as the man dropped to the ground.

That would be his fate soon if he didn't clean his house.

"I apologize for injuring you," Stone spit out immediately.

The man slowly crept back with shaky limbs as if afraid Pyre might burn his head off his shoulders. It was a fair assessment since Pyre had considered that prior to realizing Stone had felled his imposter. The more Pyre took in the boy, the more he pitied him. Just like Horus, he had scrapes along his body that for some reason had yet to heal, gashes in his clothes and flesh alike. Blood spattered and dried down half his body and face so thickly that he must have been in the arena, but it was his eyes that really gave Pyre pause.

Sincerity shined behind soft grey that Pyre had never seen within a vampire's gaze unless they were swearing to peel his skin off and feed it to him. The vampire was legitimately pained that he'd cause him harm, even something so light as glancing a blade through layers of skin. The sheer weight of the poor boy's guilt had Pyre averting his gaze to Horus and Rodney as they flanked him protectively.

Did they think he'd kill him just for that?

"I knew you would be able to defend from a lethal blow," Stone spoke, drawing Pyre back though he didn't need to. Pyre got it. Still Stone felt the need to press on. "I needed the vampire confident in his triumph so he'd drop his guard enough for me to end him. While not the strongest vampire, he was powerful enough to give me trouble. I find myself weaker than I care for of late."

The last sentence wasn't even necessary. All three of them looked like chopped liver. Horus and Stone were clearly mangled, and Rodney had himself near plastered to Horus side, fangs lengthened and his pupils larger than a baby owl seeing the moon for the first time. There was too much blood here for the man to keep completely sane. That was why the vampires had gone crazy and attacked the crowd and why Rodney had hesitated to kill them.

It wasn't their fault.

"How did you know which of me was real?" Pyre had to ask. Even his son could not differentiate. At his feet, the mimic's guise had faded to reveal fangs, short dark hair, and bone white skin, but before, it had been a near perfect replica in action as well as magic.

"You are left dominant." Stone had a softer voice, Pyre noticed. "A rare trait among humans statistically. This one tried to emulate but still favored the other side in combat. A poor imitation at best if one is observant," Stone said simply, as if it were no feat to pick apart a man's actions in swift combat. Even as Pyre fought the man toe to toe, he hadn't noticed such a thing. Each move had been so masterfully mirrored that such small indications that he was not truly left handed had not be Pyre's focus.

Stone was no ordinary vampire to pick out such minute details in the thick of a fight while barely managing to stand on two legs. Still, he'd yet to murder his son or Rodney at any given chance this night, so he wasn't with Blaze or any of his plots. While dangerous, for sure, Stone spent most of his time under Helia's watchful eye. If she allowed Stone anywhere near Horus, then he wasn't a threat to her family. While Horus might take such a rash risk, Helia would never endanger her own.

"We should flee," Stone said after Pyre had silently stared at him for too long. "The fight has long since passed, and you nor Horus should be here when the authorities rush in. The vampire-mage alliance will be here soon to get to the bottom of this, and many saw you cutting down mages and vampires with little care or remorse, even if it was not truly you."

"Stone is right, we need to get out of here," Horus agreed, walking closely enough to Stone that their shoulders grazed one another.

That was all it took for the man to fall.

Rodney caught Stone before he hit the dirt, and Horus jumped back with a look of apology as he also crouched around the man. Eyes closed, and leaning on Rodney's chest, Stone had passed out on his feet. Pyre had never seen a vampire fade that quickly, but blood leaked from so many cuts on the man that it was no wonder he hadn't the strength to stay conscious.

"Stone," Rodney slapped the side of his face, but he was out cold, his head bent back over Rodney's arm and his body limp. "It is nowhere near dusk," Rodney commented like that meant something. Vampires were stronger at night, so it didn't make sense that Stone would pass out when the sun set. Horus shrugged his shoulders like he had no idea what was happening or what to do.

"Stone has been fighting on nothing for days." Horus ushered for Rodney to stand, and the vampire obeyed like a loyal dog. It followed Horus' direction without question, which had perturbed Pyre for the years he'd been around.

One day, the man had just shown up with his ridiculous blue hair, and Horus hadn't batted an eye as he accepted him at his side. Pyre had even gone to the trouble of making sure Rodney hadn't allured his son, but that had pissed off Horus. It had driven a wedge through their already strained relationship, so Pyre had relented and allowed Rodney to exist. Burning him alive would have forced Horus to abdicate, and that would have been no better than dealing with the questionable vampire.

"Come this way, father." Horus gestured with a hand as Rodney carried Stone, and they descended down a back door to a complicated junction of tunnels. "They go all over under the city and empty out in far-raging locations," Horus answered his father's question before it came from his lip. "Us degenerates like ways to escape authorities that they'll have a hard time following. There are booby-traps down here, so try and keep up."

Pyre did not relish dropping into a pit of spikes nor losing a limb to any human contraptions, so he kept close to his son and Rodney as they fled. It wasn't a difficult pace to keep with how Horus half hobbled and Rodney moved with another man in his arms. They wound through so many corridors and doubled backed enough that Pyre was tired by the time they neared an exit. It wasn't any light or sound that gave away the open passage but the blast of dark magic that nearly took Pyre off his feet.

Pyre stopped in his tracks with a hand out to stop his son as dark magic dominated the air, flushing the corridor ahead with the oncoming death. It didn't take Pyre many guesses as to who awaited them outside, patiently standing in the path of their escape.

More of Blaze's consequences.

Progressing together or going it alone made no difference here. They weren't beating what lay ahead. Pyre turned and waved a hand to signal to his son that forward was no good and to go a different way. An objection lingered on Horus's lips but Pyre waved him off with urgency. Any speech might give them away to the waiting jaws ahead. Their enemy would come for them if they didn't walk into it, and Horus couldn't be with him.

While he hated his son's fetish with vampire fighting and seeing just how many rules he could bend before the Cinders ostracized him, Pyre loved him. That was his curse as a father, his inability to cast off his love for a son who had long since dissented from their cause. What Horus loved and hated made no difference. They were bound by blood and he would protect him to the end if need be.

Rodney was the one who pulled Horus away, knowing he would be as useless as the rest of them carrying an unconscious vampire. Horus at least saw that and headed off to a different escape exit. And Pyre watched him fade into the distance and darkness with a sinking in his heart. It might be the last he saw of him.

Pyre continued on until sunlight cast across his face so brightly that he had to shield his eyes. The alleyway provided shade, but none Pyre could reach without going around one very large obstacle. They had finally exited the underground structure that surrounded the pits, though this area of broken-down apartment complexes and dumpsters wasn't much of an improvement. Neither seemed to bother the vampire ahead as he blocked Pyre's escape.

There was no getting around the wall of solid, tanned, muscle, nor the dark magic that pressured Pyre's bones lower. It was as if the man ahead wanted him to bow and beg for his life before he crushed it. Crimson eyes boiled and steam pushed from Talamayas Sol's mouth in a mist so thick that there was no doubt as to his intentions. Pyre had been framed for the brutal slaughter of the vampires and mages in the pit, but Talamayas wasn't here for that.

No, this morning the Cinders with the Song stragglers had descended on the Sol territory and attacked his people, his mate, and nothing Pyre had argued against it had stopped Blaze and his stupid ambitions. Talamayas was here for him, the leader of the mage house who'd dared trespass and wish harm upon his own. This was a fight for capture, torture, and inevitable death.

If he fell to this man here, that was it.

Flames of dark magic engulfed Pyre, and he cast a spell at his feet to bow the ground to pieces and propel him into the air. Talamayas chased with such sped and ferocity that Pyre's light shield shattered, but it was enough defense for him to throw himself down with a jet of fire. The ends of the flames hit the vampire, but he dusted them off with the ease one swatted a fly.

Pyre had no offensive capabilities save flames and basic light spells that all mages knew. Those wouldn't be enough here, and for the first time in his life, his power of fire was a curse here. The best he could do was back up as Talamayas landed on the ground, steam hissing around him in a grey smoke that near gagged Pyre. The asphalt at his feet was melting, small bits of garbage igniting, and even the bricks looked to be weeping.

The man was out of control.

Pyre stepped only a foot and Talamayas rushed him, slapping a hand against his face in a crack that had stars speckling his vision. Amazingly, the man had reduced the heat in his hand so Pyre's skull didn't melt, but only for the pleasure of yanking him face to face with a mouth of bared fangs. Steam singed Pyre's skin as Talamayas breathed out into his face, and then, in a snap of movement Talamayas leaned his head back and smashed it directly into Pyre's skull.

"Talamayas!" A sharp, foreign voice scathed Pyre's ears as he listlessly stared at the beast ahead, blood running into his left eye to blur half of his vision.

The clamp of the vampire's claws on his skull released, and he collided with the asphalt with a crunch of another of his bones. A whine of pain and surrender eased from his lips, though he'd tried his best to keep it in his lungs. His vision warped and rolled as his sight flickered, and his head felt like it was full of feather dust and gravity. It all pulled wrong from cracks in the bone, tossing him into a vertigo collision as he slumped on his side

Pyre reached into his robes with the only hand that responded as the voice from earlier continued to talk to Talamayas behind him. It was muffled from the blow to his head, and he could make out words as little as he could identity the speaker. These were his last seconds, and he pulled out the small picture he kept clipped to his inner garb. Lying on the ground, he dragged his hand up just enough to see the bright eyes of his children. Helia had been so young, just learning to wield the flames, and Horus had her in half a strangle hold to keep her still for the picture.

Tears dripped down his cheeks onto the ground as he wondered when his children had lost their innocence. No mages held it for long, but Helia had taken her mother's loss hard once she'd learned why she wasn't around. That had been the last time he'd seen Helia smile, at least like this. On occasion, she chuckled at a joke or to encourage one of the younger mages she taught, but nothing as real and pure as she had that day with Horus for this picture. Consciousness dragged his eyesight with it, and he rested his head on the ground without much resistance. If he passed out, he could dream of them, his children he'd lost years ago.

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