by Danae Ayusso
The next page had a piece of paper between the pages, and the delicate script was penned in light grey ink. “Guardatevi dai falsi profeti,” I read; it was in Italian. “Beware of the false prophets who come to you in sheep’s clothing, and inwardly are ravening wolves,” I translated. “L'uomo si giudica mal alla cerca. Judge not a man and things at first sight. A chi bene crede, Dio provvede. God listens to those who have faith?” I asked, looking from the page to Andrei. “What does any of this mean? Is this a trail of breadcrumbs for the pale Italian? I pensieri fanno mettere i peli canuti. Sorrow makes gray hairs before the time. Is that where my white hair came from? Chiave d'oro apre ogni porta. A golden key opens any gate but that of heaven? Guardatevi dai falsi profeti… Ugh! You’re just going to leave it at that?!” I demanded, irritated to find the back of the note was blank. “Of course you would, why wouldn’t you? You may be a Prince of Vampires but you are the King of Secrets.”
When I turned the next page in the book, the thin velum sliced my finger and I hissed.
“Ouch! Shouldn’t I be not as thin skinned with this vampire thing?!” I complained and started to bring my finger to my mouth but stopped and looked to Andrei.
This might help, I think.
“It’s the best I can do for now, not that I’m sure it’ll help or not, but it’s worth a try.”
After straddling him so not to miss his slightly parted lips, I milked the slice in my finger until blood was dripping down the length of it then I put it in his mouth.
“Sorry for violating your space and orifice with one of my phalanges, and I should have asked first since that’s the polite thing to do and you know it but would never do, but I need to do everything I can in order to try to save you. I can’t do this without you, Andrei. Even if you are a giant, sexy, pain in the butt, I don’t want to do this on my own. I need you to show me how to vampire, I guess… That is something we’ll discuss later, when you aren’t dying or sleeping with your eyes open,” I quickly added, catching myself much too late.
When I started to pull back, teeth closed on my finger and held onto it.
“Okay, just don’t bite it off. I may not play the piano as good as my brother, but I don’t want a chomped off finger as the reason as to why I never got better.”
When his tongue caressed along the bleeding cut, my eyes fluttered and my breathing started to labor. With the labored breathing came lightheadedness and I braced myself against Andrei, my free hand pressing against his chest. My eyes rolled back and my lashes continued to flutter…
Nothing should feel that good!
Andrei wasn’t kissing me. He wasn’t holding me in his arms and purposely trying to take my breath away.
No!
He was merely sucking on my bleeding finger and swirling his tongue around it.
The annoying vampire had to be a demon!
There’s no way he wasn’t!
If I were to be honest, it felt surreal. There was nothing natural about it, but it felt like second nature for some reason. As much as Andrei was seemingly trying to keep his distance from me, to keep me at arm’s length, at every turn we ended up back in each other’s arms.
First when Luka didn’t finish the job in the cellar; I found myself in Andrei’s arms before he bit and nearly drained me. Yes, the nearly draining and assaulting me thing I didn’t appreciate, but the way it felt in his arms was nice. Sure, the time with the shifters and werewolves put me in his arms after the fence kicked my butt and trying to kill me wasn’t all that romantic in the least. But despite the situation being what it is, as usual I felt safe with Andrei…
Whenever in his company I felt safe, and when in his arms it felt as if reality was merely a dream, and that at any moment I’d wake up and it’d be over, and the nightmare of my miserable existence would return.
Wait.
“Nightmare?” I mumbled. “Andrei, are you in stuck in a nightmare?” I asked, opening my eyes and they widened.
The closet was gone.
Andrei was gone.
And I was alone.
In the woods…
“Oh how cliché,” I groaned, getting to my feet.
The closet was replaced by darkened woods that hummed with an eerie blueish-green glow. The forest floor was covered in thicken blanket of moss, ferns, and long grass that pulsed with soft green light. Each tree trunk was covered in dark bark, the lichen growth on each humming with some type of luminescence that I couldn’t pinpoint the source of. The air tasted different and not right, not for the woods in this region anyway. No noticeable pollen motes danced on the air, no earthy bitterness or pine or floral tanginess coated my tongue, and the air felt heavier.
“This isn’t right,” I mumbled, looking around.
It looked completely normal.
What’s how I knew it wasn’t.
“It’s the woods from the book. It would have been nice to know that the book was enchanted!” I shouted, irritated. “This is why you don’t go around touching weird things, Shawny,” I grumbled, my Giovanni impression was pretty bad.
Instead of the sneakers, tank top, and joggers I had on earlier, I was wearing a white hooded robe with a simple white cotton peasant dress beneath. My feet were bare, hair pulled back into a bun, and skin was paler than usual.
“Oh yeah, not creepy in the least,” I complained. “Why does this kidnapping and imprisonment involve unwanted wardrobe changes?!” I shouted. “Vanni, where are you? You’re supposed to be here when I’m stuck in the Realm of Shadows or the unconscious mind.”
I shivered when something cold raked across the back of my neck.
“Yeah, I’m not alone. I know this,” I said, continuing to look around, trying to ignore it.
Again, the caressing of something bone chillingly cold across my exposed skin caused me to shiver and goose bumps covered my flesh.
“You aren’t scaring me in the least,” I informed them. “I’ve been surrounded by you annoying creatures and shadows my entire life. My grandma always told me to grab onto the shadows, grab ‘em by the balls and twist. I’m sure mia bisnonna would have said much the same only much less tastefully. I have no interest in grabbing onto your balls and twisting, or inflicting any type of pain on you. I just want to find Andrei and pull him from this, and yes, I know exactly what it is,” I said, spinning around to face him, “Mara.”
The shadow hovering behind me solidified more, taking the shape of a small person, possibly a child, without discernible features.
For my entire life I had been haunted by nightmares, even before Giovanni died. When I was a little girl, Papà used to tell me that my dreams wouldn’t always be scary, and sometimes those shadows seemingly hunting us in our unconscious minds aren’t actually trying to hurt us; they merely need our help. Papà had a way to make the darkness look so much brighter with his endless optimism. Giovanni, on the other hand, always told me to kill them before they could kill me.
Yes, my brother was oh so helpful at times.
They weren’t always trying to kill me.
Much like now, I merely think they want to show me something.
That is, after all, what they did the night Papà died. I knew he was gone before the Chaplin knocked on our door. The darkness in my dreams told me Papà was gone, taken by monsters, and that I would be next if I weren’t careful. I woke up crying, Giovanni was trying to console me but couldn’t make sense of anything I was saying, then the knock came at the door and he knew what I was trying to say.
Not always were they helpful or warned of heartache.
Sometimes the shadows were ominously, and annoyingly, vague.
“You’re lucky the sisters didn’t find you first,” I scolded. “Baba Yaga would not look too kindly on a Mara pretending to be them. Just as I am not looking too kindly on you hurting Andrei as you have. You know as well as the next child that plays in the shadows that Baba Yaga resides in the shadows and light. They do not take kindly to being played, impersonated or vilified. Rele
ase Andrei from your shadowy hold, awaken him from the nightmare, and I’ll keep this to myself. No need to start a war over a little Mara getting bored and wanting to play.”
Their head tilted to the side to regard me.
“Come on now,” I scolded, sounding ridiculously parental and like a nanny.
Their head tilted the other directions.
“Ugh!” I groaned, throwing my hands in the air in frustration. “I know what you are, I know what you are capable of. I have been your entertainment for years, even before my brother died, and before Papà died, and yet even in my rebirth into the dark, into the immortal world, you will not leave me be. How many times have you tried to kill me?” I rhetorically asked, walking away from the shadow. “That is, after all, why I sleepwalk. Is it not? The therapists said it was because of my nightmares bridging from my unconscious mind to desynchronized sleep. You know that because you were there, playing off of that partially correct diagnosis. But why are you here now? Targeting a Prince is ballsy, even for a Mara,” I told the shadow walking next to me.
Ballsy was the polite way of putting it, and it wasn’t nearly severe enough to properly put into perspective the implications this would have. It didn’t take otherworldly knowledge to know that clawing up a Vampire Prince that’s stuck between consciousness and the world of shadows was an act of treason. His vampire mother would take is personally and start a war over it...
But it didn’t make sense.
Mara, or Mare if you’re German, from my understanding, were generally neutral spirits that acted on their own. Most were playful, others vindictive, but never malicious in a way that they would survive. Those of the spirit world, when malevolent, couldn’t survive long; the malic and hatred consuming them burns through their soul before it’s extinguished completely. You couldn’t make them do your beckoning or use them to exact some type of malicious intent. At least not to my knowledge. I assumed that Maras were like all other paranormal beings, and they were their own freethinking creatures.
With that said, why was this one seemingly different?
“You aren’t like the others, are you?” I asked.
As I walked, the horizon started to lighten to muted gold without a light source. The thick mossy ground split apart, retreating from itself, presenting a compacted dirt pathway.
“This isn’t giving me warm, fuzzy feelings,” I pointed out, looking to the shadow.
The shadow continued to look at me.
“In each and every one of Grimms’ tales that speaks of a little girl lost in the woods it never ends well for the big, bad monster in the shadows. You do realize that, right?” I rhetorically asked.
They shrugged.
That wasn’t normal either.
This wasn’t like the darkness I was accustomed to.
This one was more substantial and was interacting with me, or at least attempting to.
“Are you here to hurt me or hurt Andrei? Or are you merely the Herald of Shadows?” I asked, and when I did, the white cloak and peasant dress I wore darkened to a black late nineteenth century gown with a tightly laced under bust corset, long sleeves secured with a row of silk wrapped buttons, cape attached to the shoulders that flowed behind me, and a black lace jabot secured to the high collar. On my feet were black leather buttoned boots that went up my calves some, my hair was no longer in a bun and instead was in a twist with my skunk stripe in the front sweeping to the side to make bangs that swept across my forehead, and I was now donning a small black veil in the back.
Not a look I’d recommend for anyone in this century.
The child grew rapidly into a shadowy figure that was unmistakably male that towered over me. His hair blew away from him, broad shoulders were pulled back with pride, and he held his head high before looking down at me.
I felt tiny in his presence.
I felt like a child looking up at her father, longing for him to pick her up and hold her in his arms where it was safe and the monsters wouldn’t get her.
With a trembling hand, I reached out and touched his arm and his head tilted to the side to regard me.
“You aren’t a Mare or Mara?” I accused, looking at him intently; they don’t have this kind of power or control. “Can a Herald of the Goddess, a Herald of Light in essence, be haunted by a Herald of Shadows?” I asked the obvious since this wasn’t a Mara. “Seems like a conflict of interest, if you ask me.”
The shadow nodded before caressing my cheek.
The feeling that accompanied it made my heart tighten in my chest and tears flooded my eyes.
“No,” I stammered. “It can’t be.”
From behind them, in the distance, another shadow appeared; flowing cape appeared behind them, they were broader and more defined, their gothic attire matching mine, and they walked with long strides as they closed the distance between us.
“No!” I yelled, trying to pull the shadow between us protectively behind me. The moment my hand wrapped around his airy arm, his body exploded in a puff of smoke that slowly fell to the ground around me. “No!” I screamed, falling to my knees and frantically trying to gather up the falling smoke so I could somehow put him back together, but they slipped through my hands.
The second man of shadows stood in front of me, where the other was originally.
I looked up at him and glared. “You did this!” I snarled.
He shook his head then stepped around me and walked off.
“Hey!” I yelled, struggling to get to my feet so I could catch him. “Not so fast. My legs aren’t as long as yours.”
They slowed and waited for me to catch up to them.
“Thank you,” I said out of habit, eying them suspiciously.
They nodded.
This was not normal, not in the least.
“Did you do that to him? To the other one?” I asked.
They shook their head.
“Are you lying?”
They paused and looked at me but didn’t answer.
“Ugh! You are as annoying as that dang vampire I’m stuck with,” I complained.
It may have been my imagination, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t.
The smug shadow guy looked amused.
Usually my nightmares aren’t so mellow, aren’t nearly this boring or emotional rollercoaster that start and stop in a blink of an eye, and never are they filled with wardrobe changes.
“Do I know you?” I asked the obvious. “Is that why you pulled me into this?”
Again, they nodded then shook their head.
I rolled my eyes. “That is so frustrating,” I complained. “What is it that you want to show me?” I demanded.
The shadow turned to face me.
As if tentative, he reached out to caress my cheek.
My breathing caught in my throat and my bottom lip started to tremble, it felt as if my heart was flooded with warmth and contentment again, a feeling of home that I hadn’t had in so long that it made tears flood my eyes, but it was accompanied by something much, much different than the feeling the other shadow caused.
It wasn’t right.
That reaction wasn’t right.
The last time I felt that was-
“No!” I gasped, backing away from him.
The shadow lowered their hand.
“You… You can’t be a Harold of Shadows,” I stammered. “A vampire prince that’s a cop cannot be a Harold of Shadows as well. It has to be a conflict of interest!”
He put his hands in his pockets then turned and walked away from me.
I gave chase. “You are not leaving me again!” I yelled, grabbing his arm and spun him around to face me.
When I did, the area exploded in bright light that blinded me.
Once my vision returned, I looked around, confused.
“Oh come on!” I whined. “You are not getting out of this discussion so easily,” I warned.
I was in Andrei’s bedroom again, standing in the closet.
But I wasn’t alone.
But I was standing next to us as well, which really wasn’t normal.
I was glad to see that they made it in okay; with golems and hellhounds you could never be too careful so obviously Tybalt’s crown was enough to keep them at bay.
It was the only luck I had that night!
With us was Tybalt and Alder, looking confused and extremely uncomfortable as they tried to figure out what to do.
“Thank you for coming so quickly,” I said, reaching for Tybalt’s shoulder, but my hand passed through him and he shivered. “This can’t be good,” I whined, holding my hands up in front of me and I could see through them. “Oh come on! Really?!” I complained.
I was standing there but I wasn’t.
I was still straddling Andrei, at least my physical body was.
The only way to describe it is I was ghostlike, corporally challenged, as if my consciousness had been pushed from my body and was stuck lingering like a ghost.
Totally ghostlike, and I wasn’t liking it.
“If you got me killed I’m so going to haunt the crap out of you!” I warned, looking around for the annoying vampire that I assumed was separated from his body as I was. “You hear me, Andrei?! I will haunt you!”
Of course he was nowhere to be seen.
Tybalt sighed, stealing my attention. “This is way beyond me. I don’t know how to use any of this, do you?” he asked, picking up one of the bagged NG tubes that was on the floor next to us.
Alder shook his head. “I was a priest, not a doctor. Can’t you Google it or something?” he asked.
I grabbed the bag from Tybalt, startling them…
Well, not me exactly. The body that was straddling Andrei moved on its own, taking the bag then used their teeth to rip it open.