by JN Moon
“String theory, or something like that. Every possible outcome exists along the same time line; we’ve just jumped through two of them. Another thing you should all know upfront, Marcus and I have agreed to help these four vampires, taking them to our time, and the vampires and the witch who helped from Orion’s creation of the future.”
Sabian came forward and sat down, as did everyone else. The poor Victorian vampires looked at a loss, not being used to the theories about Quantum physics, as well as having five huge men in their place.
“So, these vampires took Orion? Or was that the witch?”
William sat forward. “We did that. We thought, we hoped that this strange creature could help us in our plight. We acted instinctively. We were talking with the child. Usually when we step into your time in the time loop, people from your time cannot see us, let alone interact, but we can see them. Orion was different, he knew about the time loop and sought us out.” He looked at Claude, gesturing to them all. “I’m afraid when Anthony and Marcus approached we took them as a threat. In all our time being stuck there we had never come across another vampire, nor any supernatural creature. We knew we only had minutes, so we grabbed the boy and took him back with us. It’s our fault. If we hadn’t acted so selfishly, none of this would have happened.”
He lowered his eyes, his hands fell into his lap, his face dejected. Sabian nodded respectfully and Damien who’d been standing to the back, now came forward. I noticed that Rebecca and Stuart kept shooting little glances at each other, but each time the other caught the stare, they looked away.
“William, what’s done is done. Any of us, truthfully, would’ve done the same thing. It’s understandable. Now, tell us what happened next. How did Orion end up with this sorceress?”
“She was waiting, as if she knew. We stepped through and there she was. She didn’t even look at us, she saw Orion, he saw her, and they were gone. And we were back to where we started.”
“Good, so we know that she has some kind of divining device. Rachel, like the dark mirror you carry. Do you still have it?”
I looked in my bag. It had been cracked some time before, but it had survived. “Yes, I have it. It’s here.”
Damien almost shrieked, “Don’t get it out! Not yet. The witch will see us through it. She’s probably watching us now.”
Those last words made everyone shuffle in their seats, uncomfortable at his words.
“If she is, how can we plan?” Anthony asked, his voice startled at the news.
Damien came into the centre of the room and sat on the floor, lowering his voice so much that no mortal would hear. “She is human, is she not?” Heads nodded. “I haven’t completely wasted my time as an immortal and I have read and experimented with magic. Now, as we are immortals, any magic we use will be stronger, so in effect we could, hypothetically, outdo hers. But here’s the thing, I’ve only used it to study it, I don’t really know as much as her.” He sighed, looking around. “It might work, but first, William, do you have servants here?”
“No, we only moved in tonight, courtesy of Marcus.”
“Really, how did you afford this, Marcus?” Damien enquired.
“I found an old friend. I didn’t tell him anything about time, but we always have access to money.”
“Hm, interesting. No humans come here.” Damien scratched his head, looking around as if the walls would give him the answers he wanted.
“I may be able to do a banishing spell to keep her from spying on us. Don’t get too excited. For one it might not work. For two I would need a drop of blood from all of you. I may need to get to a library.”
Anthony laughed. “Magic always needs blood. You can count me in, and I think no one here would be against it.”
Damien looked up at him and smiled. “Blood magic, the most powerful and the most dangerous kind! If I put a vessel containing a drop of blood from each of us in each corner of the house, then I cast the spell. It should work.” Scratching his head again, he frowned, whilst fiddling. “I think with another drop of our blood mixed we should be able to use a spell against this witch, but if I am successful and I take away all her power, maybe the time loop would close. So it’s tricky. But a library for the banishing spell seems to be the first and most important thing. I suppose thinking my phone would work is too much to ask.”
He pulled it out anyway. “Odd. It is still on but it doesn’t have a signal.”
“It wouldn’t,” Nathaniel piped up grinning. “No satellites!”
Eliza asked, “What’s a satellite? And what’s a phone?”
“Oh, obviously, what a twat!” Damien added. “Well, you never know.” His smile was soft as he turned to Eliza. “A phone, this...” He showed her his mobile. “This, it allows me to talk via air waves to other people who are far away, umm.” He frowned as he thought on the spot how to explain it. “Ah, that’s right, you have telegram systems, it’s similar to that.”
She knew obviously about telegrams, and nodded.
He continued, “A satellite is the device that receives my signal, or message, and passes it to the other person. Except, well, as you’re coming with us, except it hasn’t been invented here, in your era yet.” He looked to Marcus and Anthony.
Anthony replied, “1863. They’re not here yet!” He grinned.
Damien shook his head.
Eliza’s face grew radiant with the new found information of a thing that hadn’t been invented yet. Her smile lit up the room, along with Claude and William and Rebecca, all fascinated.
“Maybe I could use it near the time loop? Anyway.” He chuckled. “Let’s get this spell on the road! Could one of you direct me to the nearest library? And I may want help breaking in at night.” As he stood up he looked to us. “No alarms though so pretty easy!”
So whilst he left with William to find the books he needed, the rest of us gathered some bowls to place in the corners of the apartments. As Mabel was no doubt watching, we spoke in whispers too low for a mortal to hear, even if scrying.
Damien blundered into the room, bristling with a bagful of wonders, and started laying them out. “Right, I’ve got charcoal, dried lavender, and herbs. Candles, lots of candles, and I see you have the four vessels. I need an altar.” Damien grabbed a small table and moved it in front of the huge fire place. “Rachel, hand me your mirror please.” He placed it glass down on the make shift altar. “I need a sharp knife for the blood and something to use as a chalice.”
Rebecca and Claude went down to the kitchen to find these things.
“You found your book then?” I asked as he was getting ready.
“Uh, no, so I’m improvising with what I’ve already learned. Rachel, I’ll need something to contain a hair. A metal pot or something? And paper and pencil. Could you find that for me please?” He winked.
“Sure, does that make me your familiar?”
And as if it was the most natural thing in the world he replied, “Absolutely.”
I returned with the items, placing them on the now packed small table. Anthony spoke, he was up to something, he had a mischievous grin on his face.
“Damien, you might find this useful.” He leapt up and bounded over, handing Damien a small object. It was a tiny figurine and if I remember my Greek mythology correctly was one of the Furies, the Goddess of vengeance. Quite apt that he should steal it then. A hooded figure, black ceramic it felt smooth to the touch, like a pebble washed up on a beach.
“What is it?” Damien asked.
“I don’t really know. I stole it from the witch’s house!”
Marcus’s face dropped. I have no idea why.
“Brilliant, thank you. An item of hers. What made you take it?”
We all laughed. We needed an ice breaker, everything was intense.
“I don’t know, I saw it and had an impulse to take it! I’m not normally light fingered!” He giggled.
“Right, your blood people, please don’t be shy. I can only have one here to witness the cerem
ony and if it’s alright with him, I choose Marcus. Your knowledge exceeds any here and is most welcome.”
Marcus nodded and the rest of us went off to another room for an hour or so.
“Anthony, I’m glad you’re okay. I know things went wrong with us, but I do care. I was fuming when Nicolas said they’d lost you!” I confessed.
He raised his head up glancing and turning up his lips. It was clear he didn’t want to talk.
Smoke and Mirrors
Marcus
Damien turned out to be quite adept at magic. I’d only come across a dozen creatures who were good at it in hundreds of years. But I hadn’t seen a ritual in a long time, let alone performed by a hybrid to ward off my ex. I was still reeling about Mabel, how one so sweet could turn so nasty. I knew the answer really—playing around with dark magic. It eats away at any good that’s in the soul. Repels it, in fact, so that all that’s left is a shell of the person I once knew.
Damien lit the candles around the room and then placed dried herbs on the smouldering charcoal. He placed the small vessels of blood around the room so that one stood in each corner, the chalice being on the altar, and then picked up the small bronze plate with the burning herbs and wafted it around the room, chanting softly. Once he had completed that, he returned to the altar, and lifting the chalice chanting even softer again, this time in Latin. I don’t know much about magic, I don’t come from that line, but I had encountered many humans who profess to use it to gain a kind of supernatural ability.
It works, if you believe it, but it is uncontrollable and often leads to disastrous consequences when wielding dark magic. Disastrous for both the practitioner and those around them. I knew the words he chanted, and these were not evil, but rather rendering Mable inept of her power.
Still, it was unsettling watching a half demon, half vampire use blood spells against another. I knew enough that blood invocations are the strongest. Imagine their potency with our blood!
My stomach tightened as I tried to numb the feeling of what was to come. I’d have to kill her, for one too far gone there really wasn’t any choice, and I knew the real reason she’d used these hapless vampires to open a time loop. She wanted in there, to travel forward into the future and wreak havoc, and now she had Orion, too. The outcome of that, well, I’d seen what would happen if we left him here. Such a shame that we, or rather I, may have to take his head, too.
Damien continued, arms outstretched before the makeshift altar, his voice almost purring with soft incantations and my mind wandered back to the time I first met Mabel. She had been an outcast by polite society for not wanting to do the usual things expected of her, and worked in a flower shop in the city. Though she was never high-born, she was loved by many for her gregarious and caring nature. Some older women despised her, especially as she was twenty-five and unmarried. Mabel never fooled around, she would have lost everything had she done that, and in that instant I wondered if my courting her, my loving her and then my leaving had been the cause of her downfall?
Sudden nausea hit me and I hugged my stomach, sweat breaking out on my face. Was this all my fault? My mind raced through the events of my past. I had spent after all maybe a year or more with her, so why did I leave? I hadn’t had many relationships during my life, usually because I was always fighting vampires or demons, and female nephilim don’t tend to be, in general, the gentlest of creatures, preferring to spill blood than make love. Yes, I had always been wayward, wanting warm arms and soft kisses after fighting, and preferably before.
So why then? I saw her in my mind, laughing and loving, I remember when she made a headband of wild flowers and wore it whilst we strolled through the park.
I’m such an idiot. I left her because I deemed her life was in more danger with me than without. But it wasn’t. She was twenty-five when we were together, but then I left her. Memories of her passionate sobbing, her pleading fell on me like a torrent of rain. Memories I had repressed. I had done this, I was responsible. And no wonder she had turned to the dark, where else could she have gone? Ostracised by her community, a lover comes along and then leaves. I hung my head in shame, pain surging through me at me guilt.
And knowing this, I was also responsible for Orion then. Any of my kin untainted, unlike me would kill him in an instant. When I visited my nephilim friend, Joseph had already known of Orion and plans were being made for his removal.
It was possible that I could leave their fate in the hands of these nephilim, but I felt responsible and I also had to stay out of sight of others from my kind. I was born to the blood in their future and I didn’t want my kin from this era knowing the fate of me or others. To be honest, I’m not sure if it would make any difference to the future time lines, but there was no point in taking a risk. Joseph was a friend to my father, close to my family, and I knew he could be trusted.
“Ah!” Damien yelled.
Shock jolted me out of my seat and daydream and I stood, mouth agape as fire literally poured from Damien’s hands! Eyes wide and jaw dropped, he stumbled back and turned, looking to me for help. But it wasn’t burning his skin. In fact, it hovered just above his hands, burning contained and small. He held his arms out, palm up, and was so fixated on it, on the horror that it swelled up.
“Stop!” I yelled. “Stop and be calm. Now, look at me.”
Reluctantly he took his eyes off his hands. “What now?” he squealed.
I heard the others rush to the door. “Don’t come in, it’s alright.” Lowering my voice to Damien instinctively, I said, “Just calm your mind, focus on the fire getting smaller. Feel it shrinking.”
Taking a deep breath, he did and it shrunk down and vanished. Panting, he stumbled into a chair, his face wrinkled up with worry. “Wow!” he muttered.
“It seems you’re more powerful than you know! Now you have to master this power. May I suggest you do that outside!” I giggled.
“I don’t know how! How did you know what to do?”
“I didn’t, but it made sense to calm your mind, yourself. The question you should ask yourself is what were you thinking or feeling just before you did that?”
Nodding his head, his body slumped a little and his face softened.
“I think you can consider that ritual complete. When you’re ready, you may want to close it.”
After a few minutes, he closed the ceremony, but we wanted a little time before the others bustled in with their questions.
Damien’s face remained pale, and sitting to steady himself, he sighed. “What just happened? It’s overwhelming. I’m not ready to tell the others yet. It seems you and I both have a secret to keep now.”
I smiled. “What just happened was amazing. You have just become ten times more powerful, don’t you see? Half demon, half vampire, mixing with powerful magic. I didn’t watch the whole thing, but I read from your mind that you drank that blood in chalice. Couple that with your abilities to conjure, Damien, you have to explore this, and quickly.
“I do not want to harm Mabel or Orion, but knowing you can create fire, and God knows what else, you have to harness this. We should go out together this night, and I will help you, though I know little about magic. I have read about it, I’ve rarely come across it, but I have been around a long time.”
Sitting back, he closed his eyes and grinned.
I continued, “Look, let’s go out now. We’ll walk to the park and find a quiet spot. You can tell the others tomorrow. I’ll help you harness this. In time it will be as natural as you are now, a hybrid.”
“I know you’re right, I know I can’t turn back and I don’t want to, but I never felt truly natural about what I was. When I killed a demon and drank her blood, when I took her head and her energy spilled into me I became stronger. But it took a long time to be comfortable with that and most others are not comfortable with it. That’s why I usually let them believe I’m just a vampire.”
Nodding, I added, “You underestimate yourself. You think others see you as something diffe
rent. We’re all different. Maybe some would fear you. Paranormals can be as biased as mortals, and that’s born out of fear. Except Rachel, she didn’t care what you were, did she? She cared only who you are.”
“I think you forget that I drink the blood of humans. I’m a killer, I’m not sure many of us make peace with that, rather we accept it and learn to live with it. There’s not much we can do about it.”
“You say that, but you forget that you could be so much more.” I scanned his face, his mind. “You haven’t taken an innocent life in over a decade. You’d do well to remember that.” And getting up, I tapped his shoulder. “Come on, there’s not much night left, let’s go and see what you’re capable of.”
He sighed heavily and pulled himself out of the chair. “The others...” he murmured.
“Leave them to me.”
As I opened the door, the others sat about on the stairs and the landing and looked expectantly as I stepped out. Before they could speak, I did. “Nothing is wrong, on the contrary, but Damien and I have to go out for a while.” At Rachel’s worried expression, I said, “Alone. Something good happened here tonight, but we’re not ready to share it. We need some time. We’ll be back soon and answer all your questions then.”
Damien hung his head low, not wanting to make eye contact with anyone, least of all Rachel who he was really fond of. And not Anthony because he used to be Rachel’s lover before Damien. We scampered down the stairs, grabbed our coats, and were out the door before anyone could stop us.
We walked in silence and I took this time to think.
Damien had concealed us from Mabel, and hopefully rid her of her power over us, and that at least gave me some relief. I would have to help her, but I wasn’t about to tell the others here of my plan. I didn’t have one, but I needed one and fast. I needed some way to fix her, to give her a second chance. How could I redeem her soul? I knew if I asked Joseph, he would tell me she needed to repent and give her life, her soul to the Lord, but that wasn’t an option. She had been good before I met her, it was me who led her down the path to Hell and it was up to me to save her, and that didn’t mean taking her life. I dropped my head in my hands, tears spilling down my face as I realised the foolish and callousness of my past mistakes. I had taken blood from a vampire, and that led to all Hell breaking loose. It had cost many lives to sort out that mess I had created a year ago, and now I realised yet another life I had destroyed. And in my own self-importance, my mission to play God’s warrior, I had taken the soul of a sweet creature who had loved me. She’d known I wasn’t human, though I never told her, but she loved me all the same. Somehow I would have to find a way to fix her, to take her with me and, if she’d ever forgive me, give her a new life in the future, but not as a sorceress.