“Your word.” Lucien laughed. “Even now you stand behind a woman’s skirt. You know we won’t harm you with her present. Let’s take this outside. We’ll see then who the lesser man is.”
Henry ignored him and moved so he could meet her eyes. “You are everything I was told you’d be, and more.”
Lily was drawn into his gaze. She felt a connection between them; something was there, just grazing the tips of her memory’s fingertips. She closed her eyes and whatever she was trying to remember vanished.
“Walter surprised me.” Henry gazed over his shoulder at the bed. “I guess I’m not the only one feeling that sentiment. You have no idea how long I’ve waited for you. The planning, the sacrifice, the audacity to even dream of this, and to have it almost destroyed because he got cold feet.”
“You killed him, and the others?”
“Not with these hands.” Henry’s fangs snapped down. “Or with these.” He rolled his tongue over his teeth. “But it was my command that saw their deaths.”
“Why?” The rancid air, her emotions, the nightmare on the bed, all conspired against her. With no air flow, she felt hot, and almost took off her light jacket until she remembered what lay inside the breast pocket. “I can’t stay in here.”
“Nor should you, this is not the way for one to meet their long dead mother for the first time.”
“That is not my mother.” Lily’s anger propelled her out of the room, and out into the hallway. She could hear furniture breaking and falling, knew that Krieger and Lucien were trying to capture Henry, but she didn’t turn back and started to run, wanting to get away from herself, her memories, and this place.
She almost ran out the front door, but a guard stepped into her path. Turning, she ran towards the far wing of the house, to the banquet hall. The massiveness of the space would feel freeing after the cloying closeness of her mother’s room. Her footsteps echoed around and back to her ears. The hall was as long as it was tall, around seventy feet, and roughly fifty feet wide. Down the center ran a dining table that was built to seat as many guests as the room would hold. At either end of the room were triple stone fireplaces.
Lily collapsed onto one of the high-backed dining room chairs. Staring up at the curved vaulted ceiling, she remembered Jo trying to convince Martha that it would be perfectly safe to bungee jump from the balcony. There were happy memories here. It was just harder to remember them with all the bad. Why was that? Bad memories never seemed to disappear, while good memories so easily evaporated into the ether.
“You shouldn’t have run away.” Krieger calmly strode into the room, looking completely at home in the space.
“Henry won’t hurt me. He can’t disappear with me.” She didn’t think he could. “Can he?”
“No.” Krieger shook his head.
Henry materialized at the head of the table. “I always loved this house, this room especially. It reminds me a little of Thaddon Hall. You remember,” he said, looking at Krieger.
“Are you going to tell me anything or just antagonize each other?” Lily felt cold inside. The dragon of her dreams flashed into her mind. It bowed its majestic head to her. At that moment, Lucien entered the room looking lethal and every inch the slayer. The heavy broadsword was at his back. “Where is Merlin?” she asked.
“Right outside that doorway.” Henry pointed. “I can’t break any of his spells. They’re woven so tight it would take days for my witches to sort them out. He doesn’t seem to believe me, though.”
“Imagine that,” Lily said sarcastically. “You’ve got what you wanted. I’ve seen my–” she stopped short. She’d almost said mother. “I’ve seen the room. Are you going to tell me more, or just gloat and argue with Krieger?”
Henry started to pull out the chair to her left, pausing to watch in amusement as both Lucien and Krieger moved between them. “Call them off, and I will tell you everything you want to know.”
Do I want to know, she thought, and then she slipped her hand into Krieger’s. “Please.” Lily stared at the edges of Lucien’s sword, honed to a razor’s edge. “I need to know what happened–” She hesitated, emotion closing her throat, but continued, “what happened to me.”
“Are you sure you want to know?” She heard Lucien’s unspoken words inside her mind, so like her own thoughts. Krieger exchanged a look with him, and then without a word they both moved back.
“There, that’s much better.” Henry stretched out his arms, and then scooted his chair closer to her, until their knees were almost touching.
“Don’t push me,” Krieger growled.
“My brother loves you.” Henry stared at Krieger and then down at Lily. “You can’t understand what that means, for a vampire to love. He worries that the truth might be too much, but I know that your will is strong. We have that in common. If it helps, Walter was not your father.” Henry looked from Lily to Krieger. “But I see my brother already knew that.”
“What? You knew?” Lily whipped around to ask Krieger. “You didn’t tell me.”
Krieger raked his hand over the stubble of new hair. “Walter told me the night I met you. I couldn’t be sure he was telling the truth. So much of what he said was nonsense. He told me he was incapable of fathering a child, but that your mother never strayed from his bed. What was I to believe?”
Henry smiled, his fangs retracted, and he resembled nothing more than a young handsome man. “You see? Ask of me what you will, my lady,” he bowed slightly at the waist.
“Why? Why are you here? Why did you kill them? Why did you hurt Nina? What does anything have to do with me? What am I?” Lily was gasping for breath.
“Nina?” Henry asked, and looked to Krieger. “I’d like to hear of this Nina later.” He returned his gaze to Lily. “Would you rather move upstairs to your bedroom? It would be so much more comfortable.” He smiled, but she didn’t move. “Ah, well, then at least let me touch you, in exchange for such valuable information.”
“No.” She snatched back her hands as if they were being scalded.
“I offer to give you the truths you seek, and you would deny me that small pleasure?” Henry held out his hand, palm up. “You have me spun tight in your spider’s web. I am as incapable of hurting you as my brother is.”
“Fine, but this is as far as I go.” She slipped her hand into his, feeling again some recognition.
Henry left his palm open and gently stroked the top of her hand. “The way I acted at Stoke, our meetings there, well, I apologize for my rudeness. But that’s not what you want to hear, is it? No, very well, as with all stories, let us start from the beginning. You understand the purpose of the keepers and the Elder?”
She nodded.
“In this modern time, the role of a keeper is archaic and flawed. Our world, with all its information passed down to the first born son without regard for their temperament or desires, is beyond foolish. It’s only natural that resentment would spring up. Do you know anything of your grandfather, Randolph Ayres?”
“No, not really, no one ever talked about him.” She’d never thought about it before, but it was strange that no one talked about any of her relatives. If the cemetery wasn’t there, she wouldn’t even know their names.
“Not surprising. He was a psychopath. He covered it well, but that’s what he was.”
“Is that true?” Lily asked Krieger.
“Yes, it’s an accurate description.”
“I met Randolph when he was sent to Chersonesus to recover artifacts before the Russian government ruined the site. As per protocol when entering vampire territory, he was presented at Queen Ekaterina’s court. He had, let’s say, a voracious appetite for certain pleasures, and the queen offered my assistance as a procurer for him.”
“I don’t see what this has to do with me.”
“You will, just let me continue.” His finger wove intricate patterns on her hand. “My job was to keep him happy. I did my job well. When he was done at the Chersonesus site, he came back to offer his thanks. The night
before he left to return home, he showed me what he’d found. It was a book made of golden pages with emeralds and sapphires embedded within them.”
Thankfully, Henry released her hand and sat back.
Henry continued, “Perhaps because I anticipated his needs so well, Randolph felt some sort of kinship with me. He told me that he was sick of working as a keeper, being tied to Winston and the Elder. He’d started researching some obscure symbol. Convinced it was connected to an ancient race of women.” He rolled his eyes. “I don’t know. But then he told me about the gates, that it might be possible to open the ninth gate. I mainly humored him, but old Randolph was no fool. He said that the Elder would cease to rule over us if a gate was opened, even just a little. “
“We all hated the Elder,” Henry said, looking to Krieger and Lucien. “He held us back and we were fools enough to let him.”
Lily felt like screaming. She didn’t care about all this.
Henry took her hand again. “Yes, I see you are impatient. Winston, you know he was the Head Keeper. He wasn’t a part of any of this, not until the very end anyway. Randolph took the golden book to Winston; he was the only one who could decipher that it referenced a tablet and a location.”
“Was it found?” Merlin asked. He moved to just inside the doorway.
“Oh, so now you’re interested in my little story,” Henry mocked him. “Yes and no. You see, I had been keeping the queen occupied with my games.”
“I can imagine.” Krieger didn’t hide his contempt.
“If I recall correctly, there were a few games you enjoyed.” Henry chuckled. “Should I tell your little Sanguis about them? Do you think she would enjoy hearing about some of your more base pleasures?”
Krieger growled.
“No, now is not the time, is it? So, where was I? Ah, the queen again gave permission for the keepers to carry out an expedition in her territory, Siberia, close to the Arctic Circle, and only accessible a few months out of the year. She could not be bothered by such trivia, so I, being the humble servant that I am, volunteered to handle the situation for her.”
“Naturally,” Krieger said.
“The tablet was found, but it was damaged. Only a portion was still intact, the rest had been crushed into dust. Winston didn’t believe it was important. He thought it was all…” Henry paused to search for the phrase. “Hocus Pocus, that’s what he called it. Randolph convinced him to let him investigate it. That’s when I truly believed what old Randolph had told me about the Elder. All these centuries we thought he was omniscient, but not once did he suspect what we were doing. His powers were fading. If he could lose his power…well, then it stands to reason that he could die. It took time, but what does a vampire have but time? I used it well, acquired assets such as my witches, and other things. When a spell was discovered on the tablet, I was prepared to use it.”
“Your witches – you mean the ones who drank from you?” Krieger’s voice was icy.
“And killed Marguerite?” Merlin asked.
“Great rewards require great sacrifice. They do what they are told.” Henry nodded at Merlin. “Unlike your sorcerer.”
“Okay, so you found a spell. So?” Lily didn’t know how much longer she could bear to be here. She kept thinking about her dead mother’s corpse. How she’d spent her whole life inside this house, never knowing about it. She shuddered.
“This wasn’t how it was supposed to be between us.” Henry reached out and rested his hand on her knee. “Randolph, my witches, and I were able to crack the gate open, just a hair’s breath, just enough for the strongest behind the gate to communicate with us for only a moment. He explained that he needed a host to carry his seed on this side in order to escape his imprisonment.”
She’d always thought of things as black or white – the audacity of youth – but now, looking into his eyes she knew there were shades of gray she could not imagine.
“We spent decades beckoning him and offering him women, but they were never right, not what he needed to cross over and perform.” Henry smiled. “Randolph believed this entity – we didn’t know who he was at the time – could extend his life somehow. He’d completely crossed the line into insanity by that time. In a fit of frustration and rage, he decided that Marissa would be the perfect candidate.”
Henry rubbed her knee. She had to concentrate on not yanking it away from him.
“I want you to understand that I did not instigate any of this. It was your grandfather who came to me. You see that, don’t you? I never meant any harm to you or your mother.”
“Yes, I see,” Lily said. She looked at Krieger. “Did you know any of this?”
“I swear to you that I did not.”
“He’s speaking the truth. My brother would have never allowed, never envisioned anything so devious. It took the power of all my witches to block this from you both.” He dropped his head slightly to Krieger and Merlin.
Henry turned back to Lily. “Old Randolph hated Walter. He liked to torment him with grueling expeditions around the world. Walter was everything he despised in a man. He was quiet, bookish, uncoordinated, and seemed to exist in his own separate world. Randolph could never understand why Marissa married him. It galled him that his son had something he wanted. Walter didn’t know anything about our plans. He never knew that Randolph drugged his cocktail with horse tranquilizer. Walter’s lucky he woke up from that. I half think Randolph wanted to kill him. I offered to trance Marissa to make it easier for her, like I’d done with the other women, but Randolph wouldn’t hear of it.”
The muffled howl of a wolf in pain reverberated around the cavernous room.
“My servant must have captured one of your Vantors.”
“The revenant,” Krieger snarled. “He’s yours.”
“Impressive isn’t he?” Henry closed his eyes for a moment. “Right now he’s playing with one of your wolves.”
“Then he won’t live long,” Krieger shot back.
Lily wished they would be quiet so she could think. The revenant was Henry’s. Did that mean the man in her visions was his, too? No, she knew he wasn’t evil. Maybe he was being held prisoner. “Do you have him?” Lily said, whisper quiet.
“Him?” Henry asked.
“The beautiful man.”
“When did he first appear to you?”
“Soon after Walter left for England.”
“It did work. I wasn’t sure. I felt something, but without proof, I couldn’t be sure.” Henry leaned back and smiled. “Tell me, what does he look like, to you?”
“Beautiful, young, handsome,” Lily really couldn’t articulate any further.
“It’s him, isn’t it?” Krieger asked.
“Yes, he’s in this world now, regaining his strength, searching for her.”
She asked, slowly, “Who?”
“Your father, he must have crossed over. He’s here now, and the Elder is gone.”
“He’s not old enough to be my father.” She knew how ludicrous that statement sounded. They were talking about magic and witches and sacrifices and gates and here she was fixated on the man’s age. I must be losing my mind.
“Did he give you his true name?” Merlin asked Henry.
“Marissa called him Azazel. I’ve asked it of him, but he will not tell me.”
“My father’s name is Azazel. What is that? Greek?” Lily thought it sounded familiar.
“Your witches,” Merlin made it sound like a slur. “They didn’t compel him to give his true name?”
“They tried once.” Henry lost his smile, his confidence visibly rattled.
“You’ve released something from imprisonment, let it procreate we know not what, and you do not even know his true name?” Merlin looked like he was caught inside a tornado with his clothes billowing and whipping around his body. “Almighty Hades could have walked through and we wouldn’t know it.”
“Merlin,” Krieger’s voice held an edge, “be careful in your choice of words.”
L
ily was starting to panic. “Who is he? You said you’d tell me what I am.” Krieger opened wide the bond between them. She could feel calm rush in and soothe her jagged nerves.
“You’ve seen him; do you feel he is evil?” Henry asked.
“No, but would I? If I’m his daughter maybe I’m evil, too.”
“Never,” Krieger said, with conviction.
Lily rubbed her temples. The pounding in her head would not stop. “Okay, what if he is my father. What is he?” He’s sad, she thought. He’s lost and sad and looking for me.
“He’s one of the Fallen, a Watcher. One of the angels punished for their love of human women,” Merlin said.
Now the name fell into place. She’d spent two semesters studying the mythology of religions from different times and cultures.
“You’re crazy!” Lily looked around the room at each of them. “You are all crazy. No.” She shook her head. “This is not real.”
Krieger was beside her. “You’ve done enough. Go before I kill you.”
“Kill me.” Henry wagged his forefinger at Krieger. “Such violence,” he said in a schoolmarm’s voice. Ignoring Krieger, he leaned closer to Lily, smiled, and asked, “Do you want me to stop?”
She loathed him. She had a hate so fierce inside her it suffocated out all her other emotions until she was hard and cold as ice. The dragon from her dream came back to her. His mouth opened wide and flames unfurled out towards her, wrapping around her body and filling her with conviction and strength.
“Little mermaid,” Lucien’s voice spoke through the dragon of her dreams. It brought her back. She looked at the men in the room, who waited for her to speak.
“Why did he pick my mother?” she asked Henry.
“You see,” he spoke to Krieger. “She is her father’s daughter.”
“Tell me,” Lily all but screamed.
“Of course.” Henry looked off into space. “Your mother was a beauty. She haunted me, her face, her body, the desire to be near her again.” Henry stopped, regained his composure, and started to say something, but stopped again, eventually lowering his gaze to the floor.
“Just tell me what happened.” Lily felt drained of emotion.
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