by Eva Alton
It was a relief to return to the safety of The Cloister, and as soon as the hatch under the mausoleum fell into place with a thud, Clarence materialized next to me in a puff of gray smoke and gave me an awkward hug right at the top of the stairs. Caught by surprise, I stood frozen on the spot, holding my heavy shopping bags as his arms hovered an inch over my back in an almost brotherly, touchless embrace. His scent of rust and evergreen filled my nostrils, and his head tilted down just slightly toward mine.
“Such a terrible day,” he muttered with his eyes closed.
“Clarence.” The stern female voice came from the corridor, followed by an almost inaudible tsking sound. Francesca must have been watching us from downstairs, immersed in the complete darkness of the underground passages, which posed no challenge for her vampire eyes. Clarence released me and staggered back, like a child caught stealing candy. He straightened his back gracefully and started to walk down the stairs.
“I’ve been looking for you,” Francesca said, a note of reproach in her voice. “Was your hunting spree successful?”
“It was fine, thank you,” he answered soberly. By then I had already learned where to find candles, so I lit one and followed the two vampires downstairs with curiosity. I wondered what his so-called hunting spree might have looked like. I had a feeling it wasn’t by chance that Francesca had asked him in front of me.
“Your daughters are in the library, learning to read with Jean-Pierre,” Francesca said, turning to me. “Please, follow me. We need to talk.”
I walked by Clarence’s side, confused by the palpable energy which seemed to join those two creatures like an invisible cord. The corridor led from the main exit under the mausoleum to the conference room, and from there to the halls which opened into the many rooms of The Cloister.
In the library, we found my kids curled up on the couches and Jean-Pierre crouching on the carpet at their feet, holding an ancient copy of Ovid’s Metamorphoses.
“Can you point to letter “o” for me?” he was saying, and both girls obliged with a wide grin, touching the gold letters engraved in the aged leather cover.
“O-v-i-d, Ovid!” Katie said proudly, as she took a slice of apple from a bowl and waved with it all over the expensive upholstery, making me cringe at the potential damage and staining.
“Doing some light reading before lunch?” I asked with a chuckle, hugging the girls.
“Just finished discussing with these bright little ladies the creation of the world by the Gods, ma belle,” Jean-Pierre said, standing up to plant two noisy kisses on my cheeks. “Your offspring loved the idea of the word God actually having plural and feminine forms in Roman times. And I have been keeping this one for you, my dear,” he said, handing me another volume by Ovid, this one with a Roman numeral seven on its spine. “Transcribed by yours truly a long, long time ago.”
I opened it, wondering what all this was about, and I found a folded piece of paper inside it, marking the position of a poem about Jason and Medea:
“O Night, most faithful to my rites, and oh golden Stars, who, with the Moon, create the spirits of the day, and thou, three-faced Hekate, thou who comest conscious of my design, and ye charms and arts of the enchanters, and thou, too, Earth, that does furnish the enchanters with potent herbs; ye breezes, too, and winds, rivers, and lakes, and all ye Deities of the woods, and all ye Gods of night, attend here...”
“Wow,” I said, looking at the old book with new eyes. “Sounds like an incantation. I would have never thought Roman classical texts were so...”
“Heretic?” Jean-Pierre said smugly, leaning his back against the feet of the couch, where my daughters were playing obliviously with the last pieces of apple. “Oh, ma belle, you really are a born skeptic, aren’t you? So much calculating, but so little use for this,” he put a hand over his heart and tapped. “Why do you think Ovid’s works were burned by the Church?” He stood up, then shook his head and put his hands on my upper arms, looking me in the eyes. “He was a powerful male witch. They still existed back then. But so much got lost in between, so much forgotten. Not only books. How on earth are we going to make a real witch out of you, if you don’t even know that?”
“You know very well that Elizabeth doesn’t want to make a real witch out of her,” Francesca said in a warning tone, walking toward Jean-Pierre’s massive desk and pouring herself a glass of whiskey big enough to knock out three stout highlanders. “Our queen just wants a daylight resistant associate she won’t be tempted to bite. The more powerless, the better.”
I looked from one vampire to the other, not sure of what was going on. Meanwhile, Clarence stood near the door, shifting his weight from one foot to the other and glaring at the floor with feigned interest, obviously unwilling to participate in the conversation.
“Don’t worry, Clarence, Elizabeth isn’t here today,” Francesca said coldly, sipping her scotch. “Two of our companies in South America have been suspended by the government due to administrative abandonment. She had to fly there urgently, although I doubt there’s much she can do at this point apart from bidding them farewell.” Then she turned her impossibly blue eyes in my direction. “As for you,” she said, “have you been followed lately?”
Oh, let me think. Are you referring to those thugs who tried to beat me up one week ago, or the crazy husband who would love to see me dead? Or maybe the overzealous raven who spent two hours hovering over my head?
“I’m not sure,” I answered, feeling uncomfortable in the company of this gelid version of Francesca. “Now that you say, strange things have been happening.”
“Clarence told us about those two men who attacked you near your house. We suspect there could be someone else out there interested in having you at their service.”
“Me?” I asked in confusion. “Why would anyone want me?” I had been rejected at more than six job interviews in the last weeks. The idea of people following me just to put me to work was outlandish.
“You are a stray witch,” Francesca explained, like I was a toddler. “Many people could use your ignorance of your roots to their own advantage. Can’t you see it?”
I shrugged and diverted my attention back to the open book, where someone had underlined a strikingly pagan passage:
“I both dispel the winds, and I raise them; and I break the jaws of serpents with my words and spells.”
Oh, I could think of a serpent or two who would deserve such treatment.
“What’s the purpose of this meeting, if I may ask?” I was starting to get impatient. “Is this some kind of anti-Elizabeth mutiny? Because I’m not really interested in your internal politics if that’s the case. I just want to survive. I need money. I need a way to keep my kids. I need a place to be safe from the maniac I married at twenty-one. I have enough on my plate already, thank you.”
“Non, non, ma belle!” Jean-Pierre took my hands and sat me on one of the elegant armchairs, while my daughters rubbed their tacky fingers on a copy of Ovid’s erotic poems, and I thanked the Universe for their limited literacy. “Francesca and I just thought that today would be a good moment to talk to you in peace. To you, and to Clarence, of course, because our dear queen has designated him as your guardian here.”
“My guardian?”
“He’s supposed to keep you alive and show you where the toilet is,” Francesca clarified with an eye-roll, and Clarence responded with an infuriated huff.
“Elizabeth might have told you that joining The Cloister will help you develop your magic, but trust me, she doesn’t want you to, and will do anything in her power to keep you a stinky-blooded stray for the rest of your life, just like she did with Julia,” Francesca said.
“Why?”
“Because the ignorant are easier to control, don’t you agree?”
“So you are going to teach me?” I said, blinking.
“Of course I’m not,” Francesca spat. “I don’t know anything about magic. But Jean-Pierre is familiar with the classics, and he has found things
which might help you.”
“He used to be a monk,” Clarence sighed. Each time I looked at him, he was closer to the door, like he couldn’t wait to sneak away from that conversation. “Hell knows monks were the only ones to lay their hands on such heretic texts for centuries.”
“An eye-opening occupation indeed,” Jean-Pierre agreed.
“Apostasy is a deadly sin, Brother Mercier, did you know?” Clarence said with a squinting look.
“I’m no apostate,” Jean-Pierre protested. “I’m a servant of the Lord with widened horizons.”
“Fine, gentlemen, you can discuss your religious beliefs for the hundredth time a bit later,” Francesca said with an impatient wave of her delicate hand. “As I was saying, Jean-Pierre found a copy of a spell while in France. We suspect it’s a very powerful spell, transcribed directly from the lost Alcazar Grimoire, which is only supposed to work in the hands of true-blooded witches. We don’t know how to use it, but you might be able to call it up.”
“Fascinating,” I said with sincerity, picking up the folded piece of paper inside Ovid’s book and starting to open it.
“Don’t read it here,” Jean-Pierre warned me, a tinge of horror in his voice. “Do it outdoors, please. We don’t really know what might happen once you pronounce those words, even if it’s only inside your head.”
I nodded, although I had no idea what he might be talking about, and folded back the paper.
“Let me see,” I summed up, “you are sharing these magic texts with me, and you tell me Elizabeth would rather keep them hidden. That seems very kind of you, but I’m aware there is no such thing as a free lunch. So, what do you get out of this?”
“We keep you here. We need a human assistant for The Cloister to keep functioning. Otherwise, this recent disaster with the South American companies might start to extend to the rest of our businesses.”
“You could get an ordinary human to work for you.” I said with a shrug. “At least temporarily.”
“Not everyone in The Cloister can restrain themselves in the presence of warmbloods as well as our sweet, iron willed Francesca,” Jean-Pierre said with a head shake, and his watery eyes caught a menacing golden glimmer for a second. “Especially not at night.”
“No, in this we agree, we need a live-in witch,” Clarence muttered sorely. “Living with an ordinary warmblood under our roof would be a nightmare. No vampire could have such self-control, especially in times of scarcity.”
So, basically, everything boiled down once again to my stinky blood and how unattractive I was to these bloodsuckers.
“I wasn’t going anywhere, in any case.”
“You say that now,” Francesca said tiredly, sniffing her empty tumbler with longing, “but as much as we live a confined existence here, we are aware that times have changed, and information travels much faster nowadays. You may find better opportunities somewhere else and leave us. There is someone after you already, although we aren’t sure who might have sent them. And we can’t afford to lose time finding another witch. There are fewer and fewer strays, and it could take decades. It could be our ruin.”
“Well, you could go to Salem? It’s supposed to be swarming with witches,” I said ironically.
“Those witches are not interested in the job we are offering,” she said with narrowed eyes.
“I see,” I said, although I wasn’t thoroughly convinced by her arguments. “So you are kindly offering me a few tips on magic and spells so I won’t entertain the idea of leaving The Cloister? Is that what you are trying to tell me?”
“We’d like to be in your good graces, ma belle, yes,” Jean-Pierre said in a mysterious tone.
“Within bounds, of course,” Francesca added, glancing in Clarence’s direction.
Meanwhile, Clarence was reading the label on the scotch bottle with extreme curiosity. He set it back on the table when he heard Francesca’s words, eyeing her coldly.
“Francesca. I know well where the boundaries stand. But let me remind you, our witch assistants are an exception to the Five Rules, not that I have done anything Elizabeth didn’t ask me to. And also,” he paused, measuring his next words, “Alba’s husband tried to assault her this morning. What was I supposed to do? Sit there and watch? What would you have done, my dear Francesca?”
Francesca clenched her fists and her eyes set on fire, the light inside them sparking with a supernatural teal gleam which gave away her inhuman condition. Clearly, she hadn’t been expecting that answer―not only that, Clarence’s revelation seemed to have struck a painful chord with her.
“I thought so,” Clarence said coldly.
“Were you harmed?” Francesca asked me, her voice taut.
“No, I’m ok,” I said, sighing, not really wanting to give her the details.
“One more reason to learn to defend yourself,” Francesca said with a frown. “With spells, or otherwise. Centuries may pass, but we women still have to grin and bear it, don’t we?”
I shrugged. Of course, I needed a way to defend myself. I was thinking of an attorney for a start, because Jean-Pierre’s books seemed slightly too esoteric to solve my most pressing matters. So far, Viorel the Mage hadn’t had much to teach me, apart from a couple of medieval love ballads and the Moldavian princes’ favorite hours to go leisure riding.
“I’d definitely love that,” I said. “Although I have a feeling I’d be better off learning karate than magic―at least as far as Mark is concerned. Anyways, I still don’t understand why Elizabeth would be against me learning witchcraft. It was actually her idea. She mentioned it on my first day, like it was some kind of perk of working for you.”
“Our dear Elizabeth is a good woman,” Jean-Pierre said, in his characteristic calming voice, “but you need to understand that she was tortured by her master and kept as a slave for decades. This might have prejudiced her views on employer-employee relationships, even when she wouldn’t want to fall into such horrible patterns on purpose. Our queen is blind to the quick changes going on in the outside world.”
I had trouble imagining the mighty Elizabeth, queen of the vampires, as a slave. She seemed so strong and self-assured, a born ruler. Still, I could believe the part about her being oblivious to the real world.
“Actually, if you, or Elizabeth, want me so much to stay here, I’d rather have a fully functioning kitchen and warm water to shower my children with. Spells and magic sound fascinating, but it’s hard to concentrate when your hair is full of slime and you are forced to live on cold takeaway pizza for days on end.”
The three vampires gaped at me with arched eyebrows, like that were the last thing they would have expected to hear.
“Is it so bad?” Clarence asked with a puzzled half-smile.
“Electricity would be fine for a start,” I said, nodding. “I could get an electric stove and a water heater. Most of the things humans take for granted in the Western world don’t even exist in this vampire catacomb of yours.”
“We’ll certainly approach Elizabeth about that,” Jean-Pierre said. He handed the kids a piece of parchment paper which might have come directly from Tutankhamun’s tomb and asked them to draw flowers on it. “We’ll talk some sense into our good old queen. No, actually, Clarence will,” Jean-Pierre said, turning to the maroon-eyed vampire. “He’s always been the apple of her eye, haven’t you, Clancy?”
Clarence growled, his pacific countenance suddenly exchanged for a furious glare. “Don’t you ever call me that again,” he snarled.
Jean-Pierre’s grin vanished, and he lifted his hands in surrender. “Please bear me no ill will: it was just meant to be a merry remark. Peace, brother.”
Clarence puffed, kicking a chandelier off the table in anger, then catching it midair with unbelievable reflexes. “I will talk to Elizabeth, of course. I think I have found a way to convince her, but it will take some effort.”
“That would be so kind of you, Clarence,” Jean-Pierre said cautiously. “She respects your opinion very highly.”
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Jean-Pierre’s voice might have had a slightly jealous tinge, but I shook my head and ignored it, tired after the terrible day behind me. My stomach growled, and I scanned the library for my daughters, who had started to play hide-and-seek among the furthest stacks.
“This whole place reeks of old resentments, if you ask me,” I said. “I’m just here to work and to find shelter for a while. I’m not interested in your centuries-long grievances, so leave me out of that, please.”
“That’s clever of you,” Francesca agreed. “As a human, meddling in a vampire clan’s politics can end up being very taxing. It’s not worth your few mortal days on this earth. Better spend them learning to be a witch, like you were meant to.”
I grunted, wondering what hidden motives Francesca might have behind all this. Keeping me at their service seemed like a compelling reason, but not strong enough in my opinion. She clearly wanted me to stay away from Clarence, too, although I still wasn’t sure why.
“Alba and her daughters must be hungry,” Clarence said, looking at me with a cocked eyebrow. I was starving, so I nodded and stood up to drag my children out of the bookcase they were hiding in.
“Of course, dear Alba, we didn’t intend to keep you so long, especially not before your lunch,” Jean-Pierre said, and he winked. “This old brain of mine, I forget humans need refreshments more often than us.”
His brain seemed fully functioning to me.
I managed to get both children out of the closet and walked tiredly back to where the three vampires were.
“Just don’t forget the book, ma belle, and take very good care of our little treasure.” Jean-Pierre made sure that the folded piece of paper was inside Ovid’s Metamorphoses and put the book in my hands with reverence. “We can talk about it some other day, if you want.”
I nodded. I just wanted to rest and go somewhere to think in peace. “Yes, thank you. It has been an exhausting day.”