“Is it true? Is Malaki still alive?” Elijah asked.
“Yes, Brother, it’s true.” Solomon’s tone was somber and melancholy.
Elijah didn’t understand. “Then we will find a way to save him; we’ll kill Father if we have to.” Elijah’s voice was full of enthusiasm as he tried to convince and inspire his older brother.
“You don’t understand, Brother.” Solomon’s voice turned harsh. Elijah could see his frustration. “Father is the only way; he is the only one who knows where Malaki is. To kill Father would be to kill Malaki.” Solomon’s voice was filled with certainty; he seemed convinced and defeated as he hung his head.
“Just come with me, Solomon; we will find a way. I am no longer angry with you. I see now you have only been trying to protect our little brother. There is honor in what you have done.” Elijah knelt beside his brother; his eyes were alight with hope.
“You still don’t understand, little Brother. Until tonight, I had been able to lie to myself, make myself believe I was doing the right thing. After all, I was trying to save my brother, just like you said. That is how I have excused all of the horrors I have committed.” Solomon’s voice was cracking as he turned to face Elijah.
“When I saw the fury in your eyes and the disgust in your face this night, as you looked at me for the first time in almost a millennium, I realized the monster I had become. I couldn’t hide from it anymore.
“You have always been strong Elijah,” Solomon sighed, “and your judgment has always been true. That is the real reason Father killed you and hid Malaki away; he knew I was weak. He knew he could use Malaki to control me, that I could easily deceive myself into believing I was doing what was right.” Solomon once again hung his head in shame and defeat as he stared at the faded purple velvet carpet beneath them.
“I have killed thousands of innocent people, Elijah, and I now know, after seeing the way you looked at me tonight, that even if I manage to save Malaki, the look on his face will be the same as yours, once he sees what I’ve become. Malaki would despise me for saving him, saving him only to live free in this cage of vampirism, to be a monster like me. That is what he is; it must be, if he is truly alive. He will have to kill to survive, just as I have.” Solomon stood up and looked around, as if he were searching for something—anything—to bring him a sense of peace.
“I don’t even know why I come here anymore. There is no solace, no peace left for me… not anywhere.” Solomon looked at his brother.
Elijah looked on, now feeling only pity for the man he once loved and hated.
“I’m sorry, Elijah; I have been on this path for too long. You showed me the monster I have become, but it doesn’t matter; I will be whatever I need to be to save Malaki. I pray you will help me, that I won’t have to kill one brother to save the other. Please, put aside your hate for our father, choke it down, and let us get this done, for Malaki.” Solomon knelt beside Elijah and took his hand. “We are family, Elijah. What is more important than that? Would you really put these people you hardly know before family?” Solomon’s gaze was an accusation.
“The family I have left has betrayed me and left me for dead more than once. Solomon, I know Father, and I know he can’t be trusted, not to release Malaki, and definitely not with something that could make him even more powerful than he already is. We have to stop him.” Elijah spoke with conviction.
“I can’t allow you to kill Father, not yet,” Solomon swallowed as he paused. “He has assured me many times that if anything should happen to him, Malaki would also find his way to the underworld. I know you don’t want that to happen to our little brother. If you help me to free Malaki, then I will help you kill Father.” Solomon rubbed his brother’s hand between his own and looked him in the eye.
“Join me.” Solomon dropped Elijah’s hand and stood up. “Join me.” He held out an open hand, as though hoping Elijah would take it. “Join me, Brother.” Solomon begged.
Elijah looked up at the man who had once been his beloved big brother; he could see his desperation.
“Let us do this together, for the sake of our little brother.” He reached his hand further toward Elijah.
“Please, just come with me and we will take Father together; we will force him to tell us where he is keeping Malaki,” Elijah pleaded.
Solomon dropped his hand as he hung his chin once more and stared at the ground. “You are not listening, Brother!” he shouted. When he looked up, Elijah could see whispers of blue shoot through Solomon’s eyes. “I’m sorry, Brother; sometimes it’s hard for me to hide my frustration.” Solomon smiled. “There is no other way.” His tone grew dire; the expression on his face was grim, but Elijah could see the weariness behind his emotion and determination. “I have waited hundreds of years for this opportunity; I’m not going to risk it on some ill-conceived scheme. Please come with me, and let’s save our brother.” Solomon once again extended his hand.
Elijah didn’t know what to do. He would risk the world to save his brother, but not on his father’s word. Elijah knew his father needed Malaki to control Solomon, and there was no way he would give that up willingly.
“Father is not going to give you Malaki,” Elijah said, standing up. “Can’t you see that?”
“After he gets what he wants, he will have no more need of me. If Malaki is alive, he will give him to me.” Solomon held out his hand towards Elijah once again.
“I can’t help you, Brother. We can’t let Father get what he wants, who knows what he might do with it?” Elijah watched as Solomon dropped his hand to his side.
“I am not the man I once was,” Solomon replied, “but I love you, Brother, and I wish you luck. However, I warn you, I will do whatever it takes to get our little brother back, and I’m terribly disappointed you are not willing to do the same. If you place yourself between me and the chance to find Malaki, I will do what I have to do.”
“I know you, Brother, and I know you are only doing what you think is right,” Solomon continued. “I will not hold it against you if you have it in you to kill me and Father. You will only be doing what I cannot, releasing both of your brothers from the purgatories in which we live. If you see an end to this, Brother, please remember me as I was, and if I have to cut you down, know I will mourn you for as long as I live.”
Solomon reached over and pulled Elijah into a warm embrace. The oddly familiar feeling of his brother’s strong arms around his chest brought to the surface of Elijah’s mind memories that he had buried deep. He was overwhelmed, like a child who was once again in his big brother’s loving arms. A tear fell onto his cheek from Solomon’s eye; it moved Elijah to tears. He had never seen his big brother cry, not even as a child; he had been their fierce guardian, their protector. Elijah wondered if, over the course of centuries, this was the first time his brother had been brought to tears.
“You would have me kill you, Brother? And Malaki?” Elijah asked as tears streamed down his face.
“If you do, don’t weigh yourself down with guilt, for you will have freed us. Death is a peace we should have known long ago, if I had only been strong enough to accept it.”
Elijah heard the weariness in Solomon’s voice. When he finished speaking, Solomon kissed his brother on the forehead and was gone.
Elijah raced to the door, but saw nothing, no hint of where his brother had gone. He was overcome with grief. Things hadn’t turned out at all as he had hoped. It had been much easier to imagine killing his brother when he hated him.
Now all of Elijah’s hate was focused, burning in one direction—towards his father. It burned with a renewed passion, stronger and hotter than ever as he raced back towards the cabin. He was eager to see Emira and have this passion dulled, at least for now. For the time being there was nothing he could do about his father, but he would find him soon enough.
Chapter 86
Sliding the large granite fireplace shut, Elijah was pleased to hear the chattering voices below. Emira was in his arms before he could r
each the bottom of the steps. Her touch and smell refreshed his spirit and dulled the anger and pain that pervaded him.
“I’m so glad you are okay!” She squeezed even tighter. “Did you find your brother?” She looked briefly at his face and then squeezed him again as if she could sense things hadn’t gone well. “Were you not able to find him?” she asked.
“I found him,” Elijah said dully; he didn’t want to talk about it.
“Well, was he not willing to speak with you?”
Elijah could see she wanted him to elaborate; she wanted some kind of explanation. “We spoke,” he said softly, his face tense with pain. “He’s lost; he is hopeless.”
“What did he say?” she pressed.
“It appears my recent hopes were unfounded. My brother Solomon believes my father has been holding our little brother prisoner since the night he butchered my mother. He believes by helping William he will be able to save our brother. He believes once Father gets what he wants he will release Malaki.”
Elijah gently pushed Emira back and closed his eyes as he rubbed the side of his neck. “If I believed that for a second, I might reconsider what side I’m on, but I know he won’t, even if he is still alive.” Elijah sighed. Suddenly, he noticed uncomfortable glances back and forth between Emira and Khalid.
“We need to know we can count on you; that your family ties won’t get in the way of what we are trying to do here. Your family is evil, wrong, bad; you know this!” Khalid exclaimed.
Elijah glared at him, but Emira must have seen his tension and sorrow, because she touched him softly on the face and pulled him to face her. Elijah closed his eyes and took a deep breath to calm himself.
“My brother is not a bad man; he is just a lost soul doing what he can to save his brother, grasping at straws, hoping all he has done is not in vain. I love my brothers, but I will do what I think is right. I need vengeance, and I believe and trust what Ayda told me long ago: we can’t let my father get his hands on whatever he’s looking for.
“Solomon embraced me as a brother and wished me luck. He said killing him would only free him from his eternal nightmare.” Elijah spoke as if he were in a trance.
“Did you kill him?” Emira’s voice was soft but penetrating.
“No!” Elijah snapped back. Her question evoked painful emotions. She retreated a step, and Elijah could see he had hurt her feelings. “I’m sorry, Emira. I’m just all messed up right now. I have wanted to kill my brother for nearly a millennium, but couldn’t find him. Now I have to kill him; I need to kill him, but I’m not sure I want to.” Elijah looked up at Emira and then at Khalid, who immediately looked suspicious.
“So he is just going to let you kill him?” She sounded confused.
“Emira, leave the man alone; at least give him a minute to catch his breath,” Khalid begged, but it wasn’t going to help. She obviously wanted answers.
“No, it’s okay. Besides Ayda, you guys are the closest things I have to friends, and you deserve to know.” His voice was now calm, his manner collected. “The answer to your question, Emira, is no,” he stated calmly, but then, he was suddenly numb, inside and out, as if he hadn’t completely processed the truth.
“But that doesn’t make any sense. You said he asked you to kill him,” her voice grew higher with her confusion.
“Not exactly; he just acknowledged we were on colliding paths and wished me luck in the ensuing collision. I think he has been traveling down a certain road for so long, he doesn’t know how to change course. If there is another way to save Malaki, it would mean all the atrocities Solomon has committed would have been for nothing. I don’t think he can handle that.” As he spoke, Elijah pictured the gentle Solomon he knew in his youth and his tears began to well again.
“A lot of things have happened to my brother. He was always strong, but he had a gentle soul. He has been forced to do things, in his righteous but misguided attempt to save my little brother, things the man I knew could never have countenanced or withstood.” Elijah was speaking fast and pacing the floor as if he was on to something.
“I think those evil deeds have twisted his gentle soul; in order to cope and keep pressing forward for the sake of Malaki, his soul was forced to twist and bend until it broke into two pieces. The brother I loved is still in there; I spoke to him tonight. There is also a darkness in him; the same darkness that is in my father.” Elijah paused. “He is to blame, for all of this.” Elijah said viciously
“What about your little brother? How will you save him?” Emira’s sweet voice was filled with concern for a boy she’d never met. Elijah reached out and pulled her close to his chest, wrapping his arms around her waist.
“If he truly is still alive, Malaki has spent hundreds of years in a prison of some sort, either corporeal or locked in his mind in some kind of coma. Solomon spoke as if they had both been living in some kind of purgatory, Solomon’s created by his own hand.” He was speaking quickly again, but he was still holding onto Emira, looking into her eyes.
“So, what are you going to do?” Khalid’s deep voice came rumbling from behind her.
“I’m going to do what I came here to do. I’m going to kill them all.” His vision was concrete, despite his somber feelings of regret.
“Solomon is right. Even if I could save Malaki, he could never find peace or happiness living as a vampire, feeding off of innocent people. The only true way to save him is to bring him the peace in death he is owed. So that is what I must do. Solomon assured me Father’s men have orders to kill Malaki if anything happens to him. Besides, I have learned from experience that good men can’t live as vampires; they either fall into darkness, or they find a way to kill themselves.” Elijah looked down at the floor. Tonight had been a crushing disappointment.
Emira leaned forward and leaned the side of her face against his chest. The pressure made him realize his heart was beating hard and fast, like a war drum.
“I’ll be in the bedroom.” Elijah gently pushed her back and cupped her face in his hands for a moment. He squeezed her once more, softly, and disappeared into his designated room.
Chapter 87
Fresh air filled the room. The linens on the bed smelled clean. A gust of lilac floated up from the bed as Elijah turned down the sheets. After taking off his clothes, he climbed into the bed and pushed his feet underneath the wool blanket at the foot of the bed for warmth.
In the living room he could hear Emira and Khalid talking. At first they were speaking in quiet, serious tones; Elijah could hear Khalid express concerns about his allegiance and Emira defend him. Soon they began joking, arguing and carrying on. He heard his name more than once. Elijah closed his eyes and listened to the melodic rhythm of Emira’s light, sweet voice. Although he could hear every word of their conversation, he was no longer paying attention.
It seemed only moments later a soft touch gently rubbed against his arm. He opened his eyes immediately, as if only aroused from a brief reverie, and quickly rotated his head and shoulders to the right. He was surprised and comforted to see just what he had imagined.
Emira was lying in the bed beside him with her hand lying gently on his arm. Her fingers were tucked just beneath the short sleeve of his shirt. She recoiled slightly as he turned, but he quickly caught her wrist.
“No,” he said, clasping her left hand in his own as he tucked his arm tightly against her abdomen, just beneath her breasts.
“I thought you were asleep,” she whispered.
I don’t sleep, he thought. He pulled her tighter, until her back was pressed firmly against his chest.
His tight grip was unexpected and a little uncomfortable at first, but the discomfort quickly eroded as Emira realized, even in the midst of all the night’s danger and chaos, she was not afraid. She had never felt safer than she did in this moment, beneath Elijah’s heavy and capable arm, in the clutches of the same hands that, only hours earlier, had nearly squeezed the life out of one of the strongest-looking men she had ever seen. S
he lay with a lion, and she knew it.
She knew this man was dangerous, but not to her. His touch had proven to be as ferociously gentle with her as it had been savage around Solomon’s neck. The strong, steady beat of his heart thumping against her back was soothing. She thought about the warmth of his breath on her neck while she drifted off to sleep.
The delicate bit of vibrant life beneath his arm had gone limp, all except for the surprisingly tight grip she had on his wrist. It was as if she was afraid he might disappear. The smell of her hair and neck were enchanting, and he was most definitely under her spell; she was the best thing he had known in centuries. She was a goddess.
He thought about his discussion with Khalid about all the different gods. Elijah wasn’t concerned with them. Here, now, tangled in Emira’s arms, she was the only god that mattered. From this moment on, he would kneel only to her, worship only her. She alone deserved such adulation. She gave him hope, but could she revive his heart? Could she undo the scars left from losing Sara? From leaving Ayda? That, he didn’t know, but at least he had hope.
Elijah suddenly thought about the thousands of girls he had been with over the years… and how he had treated them like animated tools, only there to ease his mind and body. For the first time he was sorry for, and disgusted by, his actions, but Emira’s tight squeeze quickly relieved all the bad feelings. She made him feel wonderful and alive for the first time since he was young.
Everything about this girl surprised him. For more than eight hundred years, all he had known was pain, anger, and a gripping need for vengeance, but in the powerful presence of this tiny package all of those feelings melted away. He was left with an unimaginable peace. At least for the moment, nothing else mattered; he was right where he belonged, where he wanted to be. Entangled with this tiny goddess, he could finally rest.
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