Jenda understood why Meredith was so full of rage. Her daughters had broken the sacred bond between Celeste’s people and the Coven, they had cost the lives of many, and they had broken the Coven’s circle. Despite her own urges for violence, Meredith puzzled Jenda. She just could not understand how Meredith could not weep for her own loss.
“My dear Celeste, you have always been so kind of heart, you are a credit to your kind. Please answer my question despite your sense of compassion.” Meredith spoke with kindness, but her voice was edgy. Jenda could feel an unnamed presence that seemed to suck everything from the room towards Meredith, as if she were the nucleus of a great force.
Imre, who was standing quietly in the shadows, stepped forward. Jenda could still see the fading scars from his battle with Matteo. His face was a mask of severity as he bowed deeply to Meredith in respect of the great coven leader. The loss of so many of their people and the wounds bore to Celeste marred him.
His deep voice was solemn and angry all at once. “When the sun rises, its rays will turn to ash and the wind will carry the souls of thirteen men and women who once served the Lady, seven humans have been sent home to their families never to see with living eyes again, and nine members of the Order of Dracul have seen the last of their days. In addition to the deaths of those who battled and the lives of the innocents caught in the midst of the bloodshed, your two daughters fell. Thirty-one lives were lost in all.”
Jenda wanted to cry. Thirty-one vampires, humans, and witches had died because of her and Soborgne. She felt the guilt wash through her and her legs threatened to buckle under the weight of her heavy heart. Matteo held her up, his arm protectively wrapped around her waist. She wanted to bury her face in his shoulder and weep. She wanted to forget those who stood around her in the dark and bloody place. The guilt was manifesting itself deep within her like a black winged demon that gnawed at the remnants of her heart. The darkness grew.
The room filled with hate, fear, rage, and guilt. Jenda almost let herself free fall into the pit of the swirling emotions. It would have been easy to allow the darkness to swallow her. She wanted to let it burn away the hurt, but Meredith chose that moment to face them. She was beautiful, with her china doll like features painted onto peaches-and-cream skin. She looked like a model from a magazine, except for her eyes and the runes.
Her eyes were the same as Arianna’s and Marguerite’s in shape and design. Almond shaped cats’ eyes that the woman delicately lined in a smoky black liner. Unlike her daughters, Meredith’s eyes glowed the same glittering gold as the runes that adorned her flawless skin. The dark vertical slits that were her pupils contrasted against the gold to enhance their brightness. The overall effect was frightening.
Even Matteo seemed taken aback—his grip tightened and his fingers bit hard into Jenda’s skin. Meredith must have known the effect she had on Jenda, because she attempted to give her a comforting smile.
Her voice was even and kind as she addressed Jenda. “You child, you are the one of whom the prophecy speaks?”
Jenda couldn’t answer her. She could only nod meekly.
“Your friend, she is not here then?” Meredith cast a glance around the room.
Jenda struggled to find her voice, but eventually managed to tell Meredith that Soborgne had fled with the Dracul. Considering this new information, Meredith’s eyes narrowed and widened, making them even more perturbing.
“So it seems, my young Jenda, your friend has chosen a darker path. Remember, my dear, dark does not always equate to evil.”
With that, Meredith turned back to her child, still held to the wall by the mysterious force. “The Goddess gives all things, Marguerite, and the Goddess may take them away. You have abandoned your people, betrayed the pacts that they honor, befriended their enemies, and abandoned your faith. These are the crimes that stand against you, Marguerite Madeline Moon. How is it that you plead?”
Marguerite pleaded, but not of her innocence or guilt. She begged and screamed for her mother to stop. Her sobbing came in loud powerful bursts accompanied by the whimper of a wounded animal. “Mother, Mother, how can you? Please, Mother, please do not do this. Oh Goddess, please!”
Marguerite’s display only seemed to anger Meredith. She took a step closer to Marguerite, pulling a sharp and dangerous looking athame from the folds of her cloak. Marguerite’s pathetic pleas ceased as her eyes grew wide in anticipation of what her mother would do. Jenda wanted to step forward and put a stop to this mania, but Matteo restrained her.
He whispered to her to wait and watch. He knew they wouldn’t kill the girl. Jenda sent out a delicate emotional tap to see if she could read the intentions behind Meredith’s actions. She could tell that they would not kill the girl, but what they intended to do may be worse. The very thought made Jenda shiver.
With the athame held high above her head, Meredith began a low and eerie chant. She spoke in a language that Jenda did not know. The woman’s quiet and breathy voice rose higher and higher as the incantation continued. At last, she sent the athame sweeping downward in an arc before Marguerite. Gold dust traced after the dagger and hovered over the girl’s body as she withered in pain and screamed as if the blade had cut her flesh.
Despite the girl’s screams, Meredith continued the chant, low at first and escalating higher, just as she had done before. As she spoke the last word, she sliced the air in another arc, creating a glittery X above the hysterical girl. The gold dust seemed to contract around her into a casing of magical torment.
Marguerite’s body arched and her face froze mid scream in a mask of horror and pain. The silence was deafening. Jenda chanced a look at Celeste, who watched in mute dissatisfaction. Meredith raised the athame in a final salute to her Goddess before bringing it down into the fleshy meat just below the thumb on the palm of her own hand. Meredith flung the blood into the air, and the memory of witch blood, bitter and wrong, filled Jenda’s mouth.
The droplets of blood seemed to catch in the air. They shimmered like rubies amongst the golden glitter left from the blade. Marguerite writhed in agony until the blood and magic faded as if it was never there. Marguerite’s head hung down, her chin resting on her heaving chest. Her arms still bound by chains, she did not move. Jenda thought she was dead at first, until the girl moaned.
Marguerite slowly raised her head. Her face was streaked with tears and a grimace crushed her once pouty mouth. Her eyes were changed. Once the warm color of amber with the oval pupils of a cat, they were now hollow black spheres.
Celeste exclaimed, “Meredith, what have you done?”
Meredith’s cool voice answered, “I have not done anything but act as the instrument of the Goddess. She has stripped this girl of all things that linked her to our coven. What we are lies within our eyes. Our magic is the gift of sight. We have the sight to see the worlds beyond, to see the magic of our ancestors, to see the past and the future, and to see the souls of those around us. Since Marguerite has chosen to abandon her birthright, the Goddess has taken away her power.”
The finality of the moment was clear. Marguerite was unchained and led through the doorway to the prisoner cells. Her pathetic sobs almost made Jenda feel sorry for her. What the girl had done was inexcusable, unforgivable, and monstrous. Yet, Jenda could feel the angry torrent of shame, hurt, and longing inside the girl, and a part of her wanted to reach out and comfort her.
Jenda’s compassion ended abruptly, and her control snapped tight back around her as the image of Celeste’s lifeless and bloody body flashed through her mind. Justice was brutal, but it was justice just the same. This was how things worked in this new and frightening world—an eye for an eye and a life for a life.
They all stood there and watched Imre lead the girl into the darkness with only a small torch to illuminate. The light shone into the first cell, revealing the horror within. There, inside, stood a vampire in ragged clothes. His face was thin and his bloodred eyes seemed to bulge from their sockets. As Imre passed by with Ma
rguerite, the prisoner rammed the bars like a caged beast. Snarling and snapping, he stretched his hands through the bars, trying to grab her. The light from the torch moved on and Jenda could no longer see him, but the mournful wails of hunger and pain echoed off the stones around them. Soon, a chorus of desperate moans and inhuman sounds assaulted them.
Matteo gently took Jenda’s arm and led her away. They walked in silence up the stairs and through the corridors. The remnants of the day’s emotional and physical trials slowed their steps and blurred their minds. Jenda couldn’t find the words to explain the horror that was her thoughts. She managed to focus on the battle, on Celeste, on Marguerite, and all the insanity until now. Now she must deal with the reality and the pain.
At last, the nightmare of action was over. They saved those they could, and those they captured faced their condemnation. Jenda had only one feeling and one thought left. Her best friend betrayed her, and she was all alone. Of course, she had Matteo and the others, but that wasn’t the same as having Soborgne. She would have to fight to fulfill her destiny, and she would have to kill to live. She and Soborgne were once closer than sisters, and now they would forever be enemies.
Sensing that Jenda was spiraling into a vortex of terror and depression, Matteo longed to comfort her. He knew nothing he could do or say would ease her anguish. Instead, he walked silently beside her while she wrestled her own demons. He offered only his hand in hers to assure her he would be her strength when she fell. Eventually that plunge would come. He sometimes forgot that she was so new to the blood, so young in mortal years, and still as fragile mentally as she was a human. Moments such as these served as a harsh reminder of those facts.
Jenda’s transformation from human girl to day walking vampire was unusual to say the least. In a matter of days, she had faced things that most of the Chosen would face over years of preparation. She was lucky to possess a high resistance to the blood lust that drove many fledglings mad. Another benefit was her unique power to sense feelings, and her ability to read the runes. Both were rare, even in the oldest of vampires.
These things made her immune to many of the challenges other fledglings faced. However, she was a seventeen-year-old girl who was in a strange land, in even stranger circumstances, who had lost her family, her life, and now her best friend. The fate of humanity was resting on her small shoulders.
As they passed Soborgne’s suite, Jenda felt a longing to go inside and spend the day amongst her friend’s things. She wanted to wrap herself in the comfort of the familiarity, but that seemed wrong. Surrounding herself with Soborgne’s things as she wept would be too much like saying goodbye, again. Jenda was trying vainly to hold on to hope. As Soborgne said, it was always the two of them against the world, and it always would be. They would find a way. Somehow, she would restore the balance without Soborgne’s second death.
16
Soborgne woke in a haze. She was lying on a cold concrete floor, surrounded by darkness. At first, she panicked, afraid that the events of the past few weeks were only a strange dream and she would find herself back in the torture chambers beneath Belle’s compound. Total darkness surrounded her without a hint of light. Her vampire eyes adapted much quicker and were able to see a thousand times better than a human could in the dark, but the lack of light was so complete that it left her blind. She reached out timidly, expecting to feel the iron bars of her cell where she had lay wounded and broken for so long. The fear rose in her belly at the idea that the insane vampire woman was still using her as an experiment. She reached out and found no bars.
Cautiously, she sat up straighter and realized that of course she had no wounds. The only discomfort was from sitting on the hard floor and the slight gnawing of hunger. She sat motionless, letting her mind slowly piece together what had happened. She remembered the dreams. She remembered Andras telling her she was the offspring of demon, vampire, and human genes. Some sort of demonic artificial insemination warped into something more than she was supposed to be. She remembered the field, the stream, and Augustine’s love.
The previous night became clear. She recalled waking to find him in her rooms. Augustine pulled her half willingly from the suite. The heart of the battle was in the main foyer, causing them to find another escape route. Soborgne pleaded for Augustine to allow her to speak to Jenda, but he refused. They argued, and Soborgne wept as he pulled her along with him. That is when Jenda and Matteo came. Soborgne knew by the look of horror on her friend’s face that there would be no explanations. Jenda always forgave her anything, but this time would be different. Soborgne did her best to say goodbye, a simple wave, and they were gone. She could hear Jenda’s wails as they fell from the high window they used to exit.
They ran faster than Soborgne thought possible. They passed through the night as two shadows moving with incredible stealth. She thought they were running from those who were fighting inside Vajdahunyad, but soon she understood something else stalked them in the night.
As they ran through City Park, she could feel it coming closer. Almost feel the fiery breath and the terrifying presence looming behind them. Whatever it was, Soborgne knew it wanted her, and her alone. She cried out and Augustine pushed her harder.
They ran for what seemed to be hours. Passing through the districts of Budapest quicker than her mind could register the changes in the environment. As they ran, sometimes taking to the building tops to avoid the late night crowds, the presence seemed to get closer. She could feel its desire for her. Its wanton need to possess her and it felt familiar in a horrifying way.
Soborgne couldn’t help but cast worried looks over her shoulder as they ran. Each time she expected to find it there, though she couldn’t define what “it” was. Then the sound came. The heavy beating of wings shattered her thoughts and filled the night with their heavy tread.
Andras. As soon as she thought his name, she could hear his laughter. It seemed to come from everywhere around them. She couldn’t tell if he was above them in the sky or somewhere else, but she knew he was near. Screaming for Augustine, she pumped her legs harder. The need to escape pressed her on even faster than before. She became so hysterical, she never heard Augustine call her name. She never saw the impossible gap between the buildings. The other roofs were so close that she easily made the jump. This one was too wide, the offset between the building heights too much, and her mind did not register it all in time.
The next thing she knew, she was falling. Desperately, she grasped at anything that could slow or prevent her descent. She found nothing but empty space. The ground seemed to be coming up to meet her. The ten-story fall took seconds, but seemed like hours. The clarity of it all was surreal. She saw the impact coming. She sucked in a deep breath, preparing for the pain.
Suddenly, she felt a stabbing pain in her shoulders and her body jerked upwards hard enough to knock the breath out of her. She didn’t have time to wonder what had saved her. Darkness filled her sight and the last thing she saw was a hint of the morning dawn before she lost consciousness.
After it was all over and she needn’t worry about smashing into the pavement, Soborgne wanted to know who her rescuer had been. She knew that she could heal quickly and from many wounds, but she had the feeling it would have been something of a humpty dumpty story if she had landed on the street below.
Rubbing her hands down the sides of her neck and under her t-shirt to her shoulders, she found no signs of damage. The rapid regeneration had already healed any remnants of the piercing pain she felt. Trying to remember the dizzying fall made her stomach twist uncomfortably. The best thing she could think to do was to simply find Augustine and figure it out. Surely he was the one who had saved her.
Cautiously, Soborgne stood, her arms outstretched in front of her, and began to walk slowly forward. Still fearing she was someone’s captive again, she counted each step, trying to determine how big the enclosure was so that she could map out a possible escape. She was learning quickly never to underestimate the people of
this world. Vampires, witches, and demons seemed to share a taste for torture and revenge. She counted six steps before her fingers brushed against a solid and smooth wall. She could tell by the chill of it that it was concrete as well.
She placed her palms flat on the wall, searching for a door handle or a crack and hoping to find a light switch. She found nothing. She counted her steps again, keeping her hands flat on the wall and moving them slowly up and down with each step to the right that she took. Four steps later, she found the corner of the room. Trying to keep her wits in the eerie blackness and silence, she retraced her steps back to what she hoped was her original position at the wall. She took her first step to the left when she heard someone coming.
The footsteps outside the room sounded purposefully audible and were coming closer. Soborgne didn’t dare move or breathe. She waited, prepared to fight or run, whichever option seemed the best the moment the person entered. In the back of her mind her other voice spoke up in its hateful tone, “What if it’s daylight outside?”
Soborgne shook her head lightly, trying to clear the dark thoughts from her mind. She knew she would not be awake if the sun were still up. She was no day walker. Before the voice could answer, a flash of light surprised her and Soborgne screamed as she covered her head. Thanks to her evil inner voice, the image of daylight filled her mind.
She began to struggle immediately when she felt the hands grasp her. Throwing a blind punch, she felt the rewarding impact of her fist hitting flesh. It took her less than a second to realize that the she was not turning to ash. Someone had simply flipped on the lights from outside the room.
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