by Helen Bell
I studied the Gothic architecture around me, feeling as if I’d been transported back in time. An iron candle chandelier, strewn with spider webs, hung from the ceiling by a heavy chain, while flickering candles in the wall sconces cast eerie, dancing shadows. The boarded trefoil windows were stained glass, deep black to keep the sunlight away. The entrance hall had columns supporting the rib vaults above. A shiver ran down my spine as I looked around the spacious room. What was this place?
“What do we have here, warriors?” Observing me, a woman descended the curved staircase in front of us, her voice carrying authority. A red dress, not a uniform, clung to her model-like body. The click-clack of her black heels tapping the limestone floor reverberated off the walls as she reached the foyer and strutted toward us. She stopped before me, and I scanned her sultry features. Her skin was the color of dark obsidian, smooth, flawless … too flawless. Another freaking bloodsucker. Her walk, the way she held her body, and the expensive-looking clothes pointed to her being in charge.
“I killed one of you in self defen—” I started, but the leech next to me tightened her grip enough to drive me to my knees. The fast movement made my head spin. I coughed.
“Silence! Don’t speak unless you are told to do so,” the bloodsucker that held me down barked, and I was tempted to punch her in the face. However, conserving my energy was more important. Besides, starting a fight in my current physical condition would be pointless and stupid.
The vampire in front of me looked at the one who restrained me. “The mortal may rise.”
The leech took her hand off my shoulder, and I got to my feet. The lady boss leaned in and sniffed the air. Her nose wrinkled in disgust.
Oh, I’m sorry, does my sick hurting soul disturb you? I moved my head a bit forward and coughed in her face.
“Oops, my bad,” I said sarcastically. Her expression changed to one of annoyance. She reached up to her face and wiped away the tiny drops of my saliva. The vampire on my left raised her hand to slap me, but the lady boss stopped her before the back of her hand slammed into my cheekbone.
“No, don’t. Not yet. Tell me what happened.”
“My Ruler, she killed Melissa,” the leech on my right said, bowing her head guiltily as if she was responsible for her death. “We’ve failed our duty to protect her.”
“You have, warriors,” their Ruler agreed. “Melissa was sick with the UV virus. However, it didn’t alleviate your responsibility to protect her. In addition, you lied about the reason you needed to leave. You will bear the consequences. Guards,” she called out, and four female vampires marched into the entrance hall. They wore the same uniforms as the ones next to me, but their leather vests were brown. “Take them to the Starvation Chamber.”
Without arguing or putting up a fight, the vampires flanking me walked with two guards outside the hall.
The other two stayed in the room waiting for their Ruler’s next command, which came a second later. “The mortal ended the existence of one of our own, and she’ll be punished as well. Strip her of her clothes.”
“What! No! Get away from me!” I yelled at them as I backed up.
“Then skin her alive,” she added, her lips curling into a smile.
At her words, panic clawed through me, chilling my blood. Run, my instincts screamed; fight, my mind contradicted. The likelihood that I’d outrun them being remote, the latter won.
Chapter 14
Fear pumped adrenaline through my veins as I punched, kicked, and struck the guards, but after a few moments, the lady boss lost her patience. With a snap of her wrist, she sent me hurtling to the ground. Pain exploded everywhere. She straddled me, her hand around my neck, anchoring me to the floor. She was way stronger than the guards. Her mouth opened, and she released a long threatening hiss, her lips drawing back, her fangs exposed. They were large and long. An Ancient. Crap. I wiggled beneath her, straining to push her off me, but to no avail.
She laughed at my useless attempts. “Such an ignorant mortal, thinking you can best me. At least you’re not a coward like all of your kind. If you didn’t reek of sickness and demons, I’d feast on every drop of your blood.” Her face scrunched a bit, and she got back on her feet, as if she was not able to stand my stench any longer.
I sat up. “You should be thankful for my sickness; it’s the only reason I’m not enjoying kicking your ass right now. And by the way, you psycho leech, the last I checked, it’s your kind who lives in the shadows, afraid to be discovered by us—the humans.”
My big mouth earned me a painful kick to the stomach. She knew how to hit, I’d give her that. Her blow shut me up. Curled up in a fetal position, I gasped for air, coughing blood. The two guards stepped up to me. One restrained me while the other started to take off my clothes. Too weak, I didn’t have the strength to resist them.
“Wait!” The leeches’ boss stopped them when I was down to my bra and underwear. The stony floor was cold against my bare skin, and I quivered. Her cold touch didn’t help when she took my left hand and inspected the tattoo.
“What in the name …” she whispered. “Who cast this on you, mortal?”
“Still trying to figure it out myself,” I answered.
She dropped my hand and looked at the guards. “No one harms her. Take her upstairs and call the witch. She needs to come over. It’s urgent.”
A surge of relief coursed through me. I wasn’t going to be tortured to death. Yet. The ink in my palm had bought me some time to think of a way to break free.
The guards threw my pants, undershirt, and sweater at me, but not my jacket. “Put them back on.”
After I did, they grabbed my arms and steered me outside the entrance hall and to another large room where we climbed a curving stone staircase. On the second level, we turned right and moved down a long, dimly lit hallway. At its end, they flung me into a small room.
They closed the wood door behind me, and I heard the lock click into place. Alone, I surveyed my new surroundings. An arrow-slit window across from me let cold air and moonlight filter in. Without my jacket, my body trembled. I hugged my midriff to warm myself up and flinched at the pain. I grasped the hem of my undershirt and slowly lifted it. Examining the damage her kick had done was difficult because besides the moonlight, the only other source of light was a single candle on the floor. The room had no furniture, not even a chair to sit on. I let go of my shirt as my eyes caught the bust displayed on a pedestal near the window. I advanced on it, then scrutinized it. Her features were carved in exquisite detail, with delicate lines. Her hair was wavy, her lips full, and her eyes were pushed back under a dominant brow bone.
Who was she? Or more importantly, who were they? Where was I? Their leader called her minions “warriors”, and now that I thought about it, I didn’t recall seeing a single man around. Were they a vampire version of the Amazons? Someone unlocked the door and opened it.
A girl stepped inside. She wore the same uniform as the warriors, but I couldn’t get a good look at her skin in the dim light, so it was hard to tell if she was a vampire. I presumed she was. I was even more convinced when the dim light didn’t seem to give her any trouble as she looked me over from head to toe, shaking her head in horrified disbelief at my condition. She stepped closer and I realized there was something in her hand. A jacket. My jacket.
She held it out. “Here, wear it. The temperature in this room can get cold for humans.” Her low voice was warm and kind, the complete opposite of the others’. A flicker of hope sprang up inside me. She could be my way out. I feigned a smile as I leaned forward to take my jacket from her. A drop of blood dripped from my chin and splashed on the floor. Two fangs popped out. She jolted back, away from the blood, startling me. Animalistic hunger flashed in her eyes as she looked at my neck. Yeah, so much for her being my way out of here.
Not planning on becoming her next meal, I reared back while my eyes darted around the room, searching for something I could use as a weapon. However, surprising me, she stayed
in her place and closed her eyes, taking a deep breath and letting it out, clearly attempting to calm herself down. A few seconds passed before her fangs tucked back into her upper jaw.
“I’m sorry,” she apologized, opening her eyes. “It’s just that I’m a Newborn, and although your blood smells pretty foul, it’s still challenging for me to handle my new urges.”
“Um, okay, but seeing as it’s important for your leader to keep me alive at the moment, I fail to grasp the logic of sending a Newborn to me while I have open wounds,” I said.
“I heard the guards talking about you being sick, so I assumed the bad smell of your blood would assist me in resisting it. And they didn’t send me. I’m not authorized to be here. If they find out, I’ll be severely punished,” she told me.
I frowned. “So why are you here? What do you want?”
A muffled noise came from outside the door.
She glanced back and then at me again. “I must go before the warriors’ training session is over. I’ll return in a few minutes with human food,” she promised and vanished from the room.
I stared at the door, wondering why she was being nice to me. Whatever her agenda was, it didn’t matter right now. I had to concentrate on getting out of here. The way things were, I had two options: one, convince her to bring me my cell phone and then call Gideon. Or two, ask her to help me break free. The problem with plan number one was the strong magic protecting the castle. How would Gideon manage to sneak in and get me out? Since the Newborn vamp was probably more familiar with the security system in the castle, I chose option number two. I didn’t trust her, but it wasn’t as though I had better alternatives.
As I waited for her to come back, I sat on the chilly floor near the candle flame, which didn’t do a thing against the cold creeping through my bones. I hugged my knees to my chest as I inhaled the scent of melting candle wax, watching the thin stream of moonlight slanting in through the slit-arrow window. An hour or so passed, and she was still a no-show. I dreaded to think what would happen to me if she didn’t return and help me escape. My thoughts then wandered to The King of the Fae. The last time I’d been in a similar shitty situation, he’d rescued me.
Feeling ridiculous, I said to the air, “Oberon, if you hear me, I could really use some of your Houdini power right now. Please, make me disappear from whatever this place is.” I sighed. “Please be here.” I waited for something magical to happen, but only silence followed my words. No voice spoke in my head, no fae king popped up out of thin air. Nothing. No one came.
The time ticked by, and the light of the dying candle started to fade away. Just when everything seemed hopeless, the door opened, and the Newborn vamp came in with food. In spite of not having an appetite, I took the sandwich she offered.
She sat across from me near the candle in the center of the room. “I’ve fed, so you shouldn’t be scared of me, and we’ve got plenty of time before the guards return.”
I forced myself to bite into the bread as my body needed energy. “Who are you? Why are you being nice to me?” I asked between chews.
The light from the flame touched her face, and I saw her features clearer. They were average, and she looked around eighteen years old. Her skin was a beautiful caramel shade and smooth, her dark brown hair tied up in a tight ponytail, her eyes brown as well.
“I’m Alice, and I’m being nice to you because I don’t approve of the way my fellow sisters are treating humans. They don’t have empathy for humans. I’ll help you to escape, but I need something in return.”
Of course she needed something in return; there was no such thing as a free lunch.
So what was it? My firstborn? “Okay, I’m listening.”
“Drive a silver dagger through my heart before you sneak out of here,” she said in a matter-of-fact voice.
With eerie timing, the yellow light in the room died, and darkness prevailed. The soft light returned when she lit a new candle and placed it on the floor.
From the short time I’d been exposed to the supernatural world, I’d learned that vampires were vicious monsters. Ruthless. While it was their fundamental nature, some weren’t entirely bad. Gideon and Thomas, for instance. As I looked into Alice’s sad eyes, something inside me told me she wasn’t either.
“No, I’m sorry, I can’t. I won’t.” My reply brought disappointment to her face. “Why do you want to die, anyway? I mean truly die.”
“The Change ruined me,” she replied. “My life is over. I’ll never watch the sunrise or sunset, enjoy the taste of a delicious cake, or feel my heartbeat ever again. The idea of living in the shadows and feeding on human blood like an animal for eternity is unbearable to me. I’m not cut out to be a vampire. My mother promised me that I’d get used to it, but I don’t see how.
“The day the Change took my human life, I promised myself I’d end my existence, but I don’t dare do it myself. I can’t stab my own heart with a dagger, or go out into the sun and get the UV virus. I’ve seen what the disease does to my kind. It’s a horrible death.” She paused for a moment, then said, “I don’t understand. You didn’t have a problem killing Melissa, so why won’t you do the same to me?”
“I didn’t kill her in cold blood; it was self-defense,” I told her.
“You did her a favor. She was in great pain, dying from the UV.”
That explained her aggression. “How did she get it?”
“Last year she contacted her son, which is punishable by Memphis law. She was sentenced to death and thrown into the Death Chamber, where there is no protection from the sun.”
I was aghast. “She was sentenced to death for talking to her son? What is this place? What’s the Memphis law?”
She blinked with surprise. “You’re new to our world? How much do you know about vampire history?”
“Close to nothing,” I answered, rubbing my hands together near the candle’s flame. “But please, educate me.” The more I knew about the bloodsuckers, the better.
“Journals of vampires,” she began, “have been passed down through families for centuries, recounting stories about loneliness, the UV virus, bloodlust, immortality, and more. But what obsessed vampires’ minds the most was one question: where did we come from? There have been many speculations and assumptions over the years. Some believe paranormal beings were created by God along with humans; others think it was a mutation that created us. There are many more theories revolving around the creation of vampires. Which ones are correct? Sadly, we don’t really know.”
“Not even who was the progenitor of your race?” I said.
She shook her head. “No. What we do know about our history is that around 3,000 BC supernatural species lived out in the open among humankind. In ancient Egypt, vampires were believed to be gods on Earth while Daywalkers were thought to be humans.
“At first, Daywalkers left their homes to join the other vampires living away from humans only after they underwent the Change. When the dark fell, they’d come to farms, villages, and cities to feed. But with time, they started living with full-blown vampires before they went through the Change, and the vampire population began to grow. They were ruled by a king and his queen. Back then, females were considered equal to males. That, though, changed after vampires obtained the Tera Stone.”
“What is the Tera Stone?”
“It’s a beautiful rock with great magical powers. The rumors—which later turned out to be false—claimed that it could heal a vampire from the UV virus. The king coveted it, and after the war, he got it.”
“A war with who?”
“With the witches. In the beginning, the Tera Stone belonged to a witch tribe called Tera, and the vampires went to war with them to procure it. The war lasted almost three months and resulted in bloodshed and many deaths on both sides. After the victory, the stone was squirreled away at the king’s residence. Anen, one of the king’s sons, found it and, at his touch, something strange happened. The rock became red and whispered, ‘You were born to rule.�
� Astonished, he ran to his father, who was with his council, and shared his new discovery with them. They all heard the red stone whispering, ‘You were born to rule.’ The rock reacted only to Anen’s touch, and its color went back to white whenever he withdrew his hand.
“Because of that, Anen, a Daywalker at the time, felt more powerful than his father and his older brothers, and he actually was. The stone reacted to the unique traits that differentiated him from the others. Anen was thirsty for more power and, after his Change, he killed his father, his two brothers, and his mother, then crowned himself the new king. However, the obstacles on the road to absolute power didn’t end there.
“When his subjects learned about the Tera Stone, they wanted to touch it too, to see if they were special like him, but Anen forbade anyone to come near it. The angry mob wouldn’t have it, and they swarmed his residence. The guards protected his consort and his two children while killing rebels. Anen had to fight them too, but eventually, the rebels obtained the rock and put their hands on it in turns. To five only, the color turned red and the rock whispered. Anen knew he had no choice but to share the power with them, and a new era began.
“He and the five other vampires ruled together. They were The Original Rulers. Strong and powerful. Those who opposed them or attempted to topple them over the years have been suppressed without mercy. Every vampire had to swear fealty to them. The Rulers had absolute power over their subjects.”
“What happens if one of the Rulers dies or is murdered?” I asked. “Who succeeds him as the next Ruler? Who is permitted to touch the stone? Their children? How does it work?”
“If a Ruler dies, his sons are the first who are allowed to touch the Tera. If none of them have been chosen, then this right is granted to the nobles, and after that to the high-level employees. If the rock still doesn’t react to any touch, all Ancient noble vampires will fight with each other. The winner will replace the dead Ruler.”