by Lee Monroe
‘Dear, your great-father is not well,’ Celeste said later that evening. She rubbed at the stem of her glass, a frown lining her normally smooth pale skin. ‘It is most unusual. He appears to have some kind of fever …’
‘A fever?’ said Raphael in surprise. ‘But—’
‘Yes, I know.’ Celeste shook her head. ‘We do not get ill. We do not get feverish. Except … this appears to be some kind of delirium. He is muttering and writhing in his bed.’
‘Well, what is he saying?’ Raphael covered his plate with a napkin, his face set in concern.
‘I can’t make sense of most it. But he does seem to have a foreboding of some catastrophe … He keeps repeating the same words over and over again. “Protect your people.”’ She glanced bewildered at Raphael. ‘I have no idea what he means by this.’
Raphael kept his expression calm. ‘Cadmium has always been anxious,’ he told her gently. ‘I am sure it means nothing.’ Seeing that the worry didn’t disappear from Celeste’s face, he reached out to take her hand. ‘But I will ensure that the guards are extra vigilant … Perhaps we should call a meeting of the dynasties … If there is unrest, surely it will be spoken of then?’
At last she gave him a weak smile. ‘Perhaps he is just overly cautious. His responsibilities have always weighed so heavily on him. He knows that you will become head of state one day … I think he finds it very difficult to let go.’
Raphael nodded silently, taking his hand away from his great-mother’s.
‘Do you recall the boy cub who was banished from Nissilum?’ he said haltingly. ‘The one who committed such terrible acts to his family?’
Celeste looked sharply at him. ‘Saul,’ she said quickly, a tiny visible shudder running through her. ‘What a terrible tragedy.’
‘Where did he go?’ Raphael looked intently at her. ‘Where was he banished to?’
Celeste looked down at her hands, then clasped them together.
‘Nobody knows,’ she said, after some hesitation. ‘He was safely locked in the cellars beneath the palace, there was no possible way he could have escaped. But when the guards went down to check on him one morning, he was gone. Two of the bars on the tiny window down there had been pushed apart with what must have been considerable force and the cellar was empty.’ She sighed heavily. ‘And he was nowhere to be found on the whole of Nissilum. Everyone searched for him. Not a stone was left unturned. He just vanished.’
Raphael’s eyes were wide. ‘A wolf could not have done that,’ he said quietly. ‘There is no possible way …’
Celeste shuddered again, this time volubly. ‘It is the one thing that has haunted your great-father all of his life. The notion that this beast is out there, roaming. A mutant of some kind. Part wolf … part …’ she trailed off, unable to finish her sentence.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Raphael, half meaning it, for his great-mother looked so stricken at this buried memory. ‘I didn’t mean to dredge up something so …’
‘Evil,’ she answered with a voice like stone. ‘Pure evil.’
After Celeste had retired to bed, Raphael took a drink into the large sitting room on the second floor. A fire burned brightly in the grate, and as he sat cradling his glass in his hands, he stared mesmerised at the flames and the crackling and spitting of the wood beneath them. For the first time since he’d been a child, he felt something other than rebellion pulsing through his veins. He felt fearful and anxious.
The killer had returned, he was sure of it. Raphael just had to make sure he could prove his identity. There must be some mark, some clue that made this boy cub – or whatever he had turned himself into – unique. Raphael wanted to find him, and a part of him wanted to bring him to justice once and for all. But he would be lying to himself if he didn’t feel this enemy could be useful in some way.
Outside it was pitch black, the moon, not quite full in the sky. The whole of Nissilum seemed a more sinister place tonight. Somewhere out there was a threat to its entire civilisation.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
‘Who are your family?’ I asked Soren, who was using two heavy pans as small weights. I had been trying for the last half hour not to look at his bare torso. It was surprisingly muscley. Sinewy, strong. Soren let out a small gasp as he brought the weights down to the floor. He breathed out heavily, a light film of sweat on his forehead, his dark hair pushed back off his face, but for one inky cowlick. He flashed me a smile.
‘Everywhere … and nowhere,’ he replied annoyingly at last. ‘I am a chameleon.’
‘Soren.’ I shut my eyes in brief annoyance. ‘That’s not an answer. There’s enigmatic and there’s downright weird.’
‘How about enigmatically weird?’ he said, picking up his T-shirt and pulling it over his head.
‘Why are you so determined to keep your past a secret?’
I got up from Vanya’s kitchen table and walked over to the sink, filling a cup of water. When I turned back, Soren was staring at me. With his tousled hair and white T-shirt clinging to his chest, I had to stop myself from staring back. Instead I held out the cup of water.
‘Drink,’ I told him.
‘I am beginning to realise that you are really quite bossy, Miss Jane,’ he said, then took a long gulp.
‘I’m serious. Why can’t you tell me?’
I watched as he finished his water, placing the empty cup on the table. He finally engaged with me, a more thoughtful look on his face.
‘Listen, there are some things you really are better off not knowing,’ he said quietly. ‘Things that might … well, that might give you the wrong idea about me.’
‘But that’s just it, I have no idea about you. I know that you are trying to help me in some way … and I really can’t think why you’re going to so much trouble, Soren. I mean, I know it’s because of Lila. But you hardly mention her …’ I paused. ‘What exactly is she to you?’
‘What?’ he looked sharply at me for a second. ‘I have already told you. Lila and I are meant to be together.’
‘Uh huh.’ I sighed. This conversation was going round in circles. And many things still didn’t seem right.
‘OK. Look … It is a little more complicated than I have let on perhaps…My past. Who I am…If you really knew …’
‘Tell me.’ I stepped forward. ‘Just tell me.’
‘I can’t.’ He looked pleadingly at me. ‘Just try and trust me … Soon … you will find out, but then you will have got what you want and it won’t matter any more.’
‘Soren!’ I flapped my arms around, exasperated. ‘You have to trust me! I’m not some innocent little girl any more. In the last year and a half I’ve dated a boy who turned out to be a fallen angel … fallen in love with a werewolf who just betrayed me …’ My voice broke, saying it out loud.
He moved over to me quickly and I felt his arms around me. His long neck nestled into mine.
‘It’s OK. I am sorry. I know you are strong. I suppose I am just trying to stop any more confusion than is necessary in your life.’
With the solid weight of his arms holding me, I let out a small, inappropriate giggle.
Soren pulled away. ‘Now, you find it funny? What is so amusing to you?’
‘It’s just … it couldn’t get any more confusing if it tried,’ I said, properly laughing now. ‘Or more weird, or difficult …’ I trailed off. ‘It’s not like another layer of confusion will make any difference.’
I smiled at him. He smiled at me.
‘Come. Sit with me.’ He drew me over to the bench by the kitchen table, then craned his neck to see that the door was shut.
Soren sat still without speaking for what seemed an eternity before he finally took my hands in his.
‘A long time ago, I did something … terrible here. Something I can’t even think about now, and would not, if it didn’t haunt me in my sleep. Because of what I did I was sent away from here. And I have stayed away … until now. My only friend on Nissilum has been Vanya …’ he hesitated, seeing my wrapt expressio
n. ‘It is a long story, but needless to say, Vanya and I have a close bond – one that goes back a long way … and then there is Lila, of course.’
‘Yes,’ I said frowning a little, ‘there’s Lila.’
‘Lila is very precious to me. But not in the way I have led you to believe.’
My frown deepened. ‘In what way then?’
‘She and I were bound together in childhood, as I said. Sharing everything. She looked up to me. I looked after her. But then … when she was very young. I …’ He stopped and I saw that his face was stricken.
‘Soren, what is it? I coaxed. ‘You can tell me.’
‘I need to find her. I need to put things right.’
‘Put things right?’ I moved closer to him.
‘Lila is my sister,’ he got out finally. His whole body seemed to crumple as he spoke.
Did my heart skip a beat? It certainly felt like it.
‘Your sister?’ I slowly shook my head. ‘Why didn’t you tell me that before … and then, why are you so keen to break her and Luca up? I don’t understand.’
‘Because I won’t let her marry him,’ he answered sadly, ‘when he doesn’t truly love her.’
‘He may grow to love her. He will take care of her.’ I forced the words out, though it killed me.
‘She is second best.’ He said with authority. ‘It doesn’t matter how dutiful he is. She deserves better. She deserves to be properly, passionately loved.’
‘Why do you feel so strongly about this?’ I studied him. ‘I mean, I understand you want the best for her, but—’
‘Because I am the reason her life was ruined in the first place. The reason she was wrenched from her flesh-and-blood family and taken in by strangers.’ He turned, his face flushed, towards me. ‘I killed them. I killed all of them. Our parents, our brother and my other sister … Lila was the only one who survived.’
I drew my hands away, my whole body cold with shock.
‘This is a joke … right?’ All the blood had drained out of my face, I was sure of it. ‘You…Soren…tell me this isn’t true.’
‘I was young … a cub. I didn’t know what I was doing. An imbalance of some kind,’ he said, avoiding my eyes. ‘I was very angry.’
I knew I had unconsciously moved further back from him on the bench. I was trying to take this all in, make sense of it. But in my world, only monsters did that kind of thing. Killers.
‘Jesus, Soren,’ I breathed. ‘This is massive. I should never have come here with you, not knowing you … I mean, what kind of idiot am I?’
‘Please. Jane. Don’t think I don’t regret with all my heart what I did that day. I would never hurt you …’
I closed my eyes. Where have I heard that before?
‘I am here to put things right … I need to put them right. For my sister. It’s the least I can do. I have come back to take care of her.’ He paused. ‘And the more I know you, know of what happened between you and Luca, I see that it is the only way. Don’t you see? This whole ridiculous set of meaningless rules and traditions here. Stopping everyone from doing what they really want to do. From being who they really want to be with.’
‘And that’s what you want? To spend your life with your sister?’
‘I … I want to put things right,’ he repeated dully.
I was still trying to digest this shocking information, when the door opened and Vanya appeared, stretching.
‘There you are,’ she said, running her fingers through her hair. ‘Huddled together as usual, plotting.’
Was it my imagination or was there an edge to her voice? I wasn’t about to get on the wrong side of Vanya. Things had already taken a turn I didn’t like.
‘Not at all,’ I said, getting up, hugging myself a little protectively. ‘In fact, we were just talking about me leaving.’
‘Jane!’ Soren seemed to recover his composure, standing alarmed. Vanya arched an eyebrow.
‘Already?’ She looked at the two of us suspiciously. ‘But you haven’t got what you came for yet – either of you.’
‘I’ve changed my mind about that.’ I gave Soren a pointed look. ‘It’s not worth all the trouble.’
‘Giving up, are you?’ Vanya unscrewed a bottle of something dark and potent-looking. ‘How terribly mortal of you.’
‘Leave it, Vanya,’ Soren warned her. ‘Jane knows.’
She stopped what she was doing. ‘You told her …’
‘I told her about what I did. Who Lila really is.’
‘Ah.’ She looked intently at me, then poured herself a glass of the bottle’s contents – and I thought her hand was shaking a little as she did so.
‘This is all too complicated,’ I said. ‘I don’t want to get involved. All I wanted was to be with Luca. I thought Soren was helping me because he loved Lila. But he was just using me to infiltrate society here … pretending to be something he’s not.’
I had no idea where that had come from. Except that I needed to believe it, because I was in a mess that was too deep and shocking.
Vanya opened her mouth to say something, then thought better of it and simply shrugged, settling herself in an armchair near the kitchen fire.
Soren was pacing the stone floor, head bent.
‘So I’ll just get my stuff.’ I paused, looking from Vanya to Soren. ‘Someone will have to help me get home …’ I had a sudden thought that they might refuse, now that I was being uncooperative. Why would they want to help me? Vanya had not exactly had my best interests at heart before. My heart sank. I had been so stupid. Too trusting. Had I not learned anything from Evan?
‘Of course,’ Soren said, surprising me. ‘I understand why you feel this way. I know what it looks like. I know I lied to you … But you would never have agreed to help me if I had told the truth.’ He gazed imploringly at me. ‘I don’t want you to go …’
‘Well, that’s too bad,’ I said. ‘I want to see my family. They’ll be wondering where I am.’
‘You’ve hardly been gone,’ Soren said quietly. ‘They won’t be worried.’
‘Well … I still want to go home. I need to get away. Just forget about all of this. Get on with my life on Earth.’ I started quickly towards the exit, running up the stairs to the front door. I didn’t have a coat, but I didn’t care, I could do without it.
‘Jane?’ Soren was at my side, one hand holding the door shut.
‘Just let me go, Soren,’ I said wearily now. ‘You’re here, on Nissilum. And you can do what you like. You don’t need me any more.’
‘I do …’ he said, his forehead creasing with distress. ‘You are not a stranger any more. You’re my friend.’
I glanced briefly at him, confused by his meaning, but he took his hand off the door.
‘Friends don’t lie,’ I said righteously and, wasting no time, I wrenched the door open, to meet the crisp night air. As I stepped out on to the cobbled street I thought I saw a figure in the shadows on the other side, but it moved back, indistinct. I squinted in the night and saw a black coat disappearing. For some reason I didn’t want Soren to see it too.
‘So, thanks,’ I said curtly. ‘If you’ll just help me get back …’
‘I thought we were friends.’ He wasn’t moving, ‘Please don’t go like this.’
I realised I was freezing. If I didn’t get home soon I would die of hypothermia.
‘Look, I just need time to think.’ I had no intention of ever seeing Soren again, but if pretending would speed up my departure, then so be it.
‘You haven’t got much time … If you leave now, then—’
‘Fine. I’ll find my own way home.’ I turned my back on him, not really knowing what I was going to do next. It looked like Soren wasn’t going to help me after all. As I started walking I was determined not to look back, to see him standing there. So what if he wasn’t there to take me back. Maybe I could find someone else?
I retraced the steps of our walk earlier that day, down the cobbled road, past the quaint lit
tle houses, silent, eerie … like everyone was already asleep. Then I remembered that this was the vampire quarter. It was dark, so if habits hadn’t died away, they should be circulating soon. I needed to be away from here before that happened.
The sound of my footsteps seemed to echo. I thought of the figure I had seen outside Vanya’s house and suddenly felt more afraid.
I stopped in my tracks. There might be one person left who could help me … someone I trusted … who was on my side. Had been on my side.
Dalya.
If I could just find somewhere to sleep tonight, somewhere I could hide out. I could set out to find her in the morning. Dalya would help me. I was almost sure she would.
But the wind picked up and sliced right through me, and though I was trying to stop the panic rising, I could feel my eyes pricking. I was scared and cold and alone. And I wanted to see my mother.
The wind seemed to be getting stronger, great gusts of wind, pushing me forward until my legs, my feet, lost the ability to move of their own volition and were propelled forward by some kind of gathering storm.
A large drop of rain splashed on my forehead. Somewhere back there, Soren was no doubt expecting me to turn and go back. My imagination was running away with me. Was this sudden change in the weather something conjured up by Vanya?
I let out a gasp as I felt hands gripping my arms, so tightly that I couldn’t turn back to see who was holding on to me so forcefully. This time there was no stopping the tears, they were streaming down my face, mixing with the rain which was pelting now.
‘Please,’ I whimpered as I pushed forward, ‘I just want to go home. Just let me get home.’
And then I felt him, his face against my soaked hair, and a familiar scent – sweet, woody – and I closed my eyes, relieved and confused at the same time.
‘Is that you?’ I said. ‘Is it really you?’
And then reality seemed to blur and, as the sky above us split with a fork of lightning, I felt his arms encircling me and his breath against my cheek.
And I finally passed out.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN