by Peter Dawes
I knew the moment my eyes changed color – blue replaced by an emerald stare. Regardless of Grigore’s words, or how much he had banked on the truth of them, it seemed nothing had prepared him for the inevitable confirmation. His smile faltered for only the second time since I had met him, with Nicolae leaning forward in his chair to get a better look and Emil gasping softly. I perked an eyebrow and glanced at each one of them before looking back at Grigore.
He shook away his astonishment and visibly shored himself up again. “No,” he said, his voice gaining back his confidence the more he spoke. “It wasn’t only Irina. I had my suspicions even before she told me you had eyes that changed color.”
“That was how she worded it?”
“Yes. Honestly, I’d be surprised if she’s ever been told what one of you are.” Bringing the cigar to his mouth, he stole a few puffs of it and exhaled the last of his anxiety in a plume of smoke. “Clever trick. I’ve never seen one of you do it before.”
“My first opportunity to utilize it. I hope I did not disappoint.”
“That isn’t exactly the word I would use.” He shook his head and finally managed to look away. “So, are Sabrina Ravensdale’s progeny or not?”
“Not an elder, but certainly one of them. I was her last desperate bid for control of an area where she had only had a foothold. Nothing more.” Pausing, I replayed his question in my head. “Ravensdale? Admittedly, I never knew her surname.”
“If I had to guess, she divorced herself from it shortly after she left here.” Grigore motioned with his cigar, brushing away whatever thought he had conjured just as quickly as it surfaced. “Suffice to say the last time she visited with your brother Michael wasn’t the first time she’d been here. It was also how I knew you weren’t an elder.”
“You had known her previously.”
“And I remember how she introduced Michael to me. Her sole child.” His smile faded, but this time for an entirely different reason. I saw genuine remorse in his eyes as his gaze lowered to his desk. “Sabrina was always a fool and this only proves how much so. Would snap at the hand which tried to feed her and sometimes only out of spite. Turning a seer, though…” When he looked back up at me again, his brow furrowed, confusing overlapping the guilt. “You are a vampire. I saw you feed with us. That was a gamble, I admit it. I wanted to see if you were hiding behind spells.”
“I lack my watcher to maintain that caliber of a spell, if it even exists. The one concealing my eyes had been cast before I left the last place I had ventured.” I frowned, my turn to dismiss a conversational topic. “Grigore, I am not here to cast any judgment on you or your coven. I have much larger things to attend toward with my visit.”
Both Emil and Nicolae relaxed, as if exhaling a breath they had been holding for some time. Grigore, however, continued to stare at me, his expression sobering all the more. The look in his eyes read almost of pity. “You are a man on a mission, aren’t you?” The question had been issued rhetorically. I remained quiet while he nodded, his eyes shutting only for a moment. “Should we still be calling you Peter?” he asked, lids lifting after an additional second of quiet meditation.
I perked an eyebrow. “Yes. That is indeed my name.”
“Amid deception, even the more obvious questions still need to be asked. My children are blissfully ignorant of how your kind functions. I’ve taught them all one can from mere words.” He nodded at Emil, who straightened in his seat at being brought to the limelight. “Emil hasn’t even met those who have met seers yet. At least Nicolae has the words of others, not just mine.”
“I’ve believed you, Domn,” Emil interjected.
“I know you have. But there will come a day when you have your own coven and you need to know these are a dangerous lot.” His gaze returned to me. “You should also know, they’re very driven by their missions. And heaven help you if you get into the way of one. I can’t begin to imagine what sort of mission has a vampire seer pretending to be one of us, but experience tells me I’ll probably not like the answer.”
“Actually, I spoke my mission to you last night,” I replied, lifting my cigar to my mouth again.
“You mentioned myths to me, not a mission,” Grigore countered.
“Now, who is the deceptive one?”
“You might not take exception to rudeness, but I do. Mind your tongue, seer.”
“I shall mind nothing. You lie to me and to your immortal children by claiming them to only be myths.” Puffing from the end, I drew deep enough to hold the smoke inside my lungs. It billowed slowly out my nostrils when I exhaled. “I saw your relief when we changed the subject. Your expression fell just for the briefest of seconds, but it was long enough for you to give yourself away.”
My host scowled, setting the cigar down on an ashtray poised on the far edge of his desk. Reclining back in his chair, he folded his arms across his chest. “Bold claims,” he said. “Thinking that I would ever lie to my own blood.”
“You would to protect them.”
Grigore stared at me, the silence pervasive and telling. When he failed to speak, I sighed, reaching as well to place my cigar down on a nearby ashtray. Hunched forward in my chair, I rested my elbows on my thighs, hands folded before me as if in prayer. But not once did I look away. “I would lie to protect my loved ones as well,” I said. “I meant you no disrespect with regard to your motives. You asked of my mission and I am deigning to tell you, but only because I need your help. And you have given me enough suspicion to believe you know what I am talking about.”
A soft chuckle passed through his lips, arms uncrossing so he could extend his hand out to the top of his desk. Idly, his finger dabbed at a piece of ash that had fallen on the blotter. “You were asking about ruins,” he said. “And dangerous immortals.”
“Yes, I was. Namely, ones who protect certain parchments.”
“Just as I doubted you might have been one of Sabrina’s, you exercise her destructive folly.” He glanced from the desk’s surface, back up to me. “You’re running a fool’s errand.”
“Fool if I believe the parchments are real?”
“Fool if you think you aren’t in over your head.” The amused grin resurfaced, somewhat blacker than it had been before its departure. “I highly doubt you know the fire you’re playing with.”
“To the contrary, I am all too familiar.” Unblinking in my conviction, I held my body as steady as my mind had become. “Two of the scrolls are in my possession. I suspect the locations of the remaining five, which is what brings me here.”
“And you would do our dark father’s bidding in assembling them together again.”
“The will of the Fates is more like it, my friend. I have been on this path for several weeks now, following one twist to another until I have reached this point.”
Grigore shook his head. “I can’t imagine what makes you think this is the will of the Fates. I would be tempted to blame your maker, but her ambitions were always so much smaller, so much more personal.”
“I could tell you the story, Master Grigore. If you were apt to listen.”
Perking an eyebrow, I issued the dare to him this time, aware in my periphery that Nicolae and Emil had shifted in their seats, their eyes flicking expectantly between me and their maker while we remained locked in a stalemate. The coven master picked up his cigar, reclining in his chair and glancing heavenward, almost meditative for a moment before he brought the cigar to his mouth and puffed from it a few times. The draw of tobacco and release of smoke bore pensive undertones, his gaze not returning to mine when he finally responded. “Tell me your story,” he said. “It doesn’t mean, though, that I’ll agree with you in the end.”
“I expect you might not,” I responded. Nodding once, I paused to assemble my thoughts before launching into the entirety of my tale for the trio. As I began with my turning, Grigore remained standoffish, still staring away from me while his children regarded me in silence. I segued into Robin’s murder and Monica’s alleg
iance, discussing the matter of her friends and Ian Carmichael while on the run from the Order. This piqued Grigore’s interest enough that he turned to face me again, his facial expression impassive still, but his attention rapt. I discussed defending Seattle and being set upon the task of rescuing Monica, and then paused for effect, just as engrossed in the storytelling as the three had become in listening. “This, my friends, is where the tale turns truly extraordinary,” I noted before continuing.
Emil raised an eyebrow and Nicolae stood to pour us drinks. Grigore did not respond one way or the other, until I mentioned Robin’s resurrection and only then did I see his eyes widen. We sipped our Scotch as my story rounded off with discussion of Darshan and the ruins in Northern India. I sat back in my chair again once finished, glass still cradled in hand. “You asked about the mission of a vampire seer,” I said. “Here it is, my friends. For whatever reason, I have been tasked with it and I wish to see it through. For this, however, I need your help.”
Grigore frowned, reaching to extinguish his cigar and placing it down onto the ashtray again. Mine had grown forgotten, with me not apt to pay it any further attention. Instead, I polished off the remainder of my drink, watching as the coven master stared at the opposite wall. “I admire how far you’ve come,” he said, just as I was certain nothing would break the silence. “You carried yourself well enough to be considered several decades older than your years. Without knowing Sabrina, I still wouldn’t have believed you a century, but neither would I have thought you only five years as an immortal.”
“The years have been rather full.”
“That they have.” He drew a deep breath inward, eyes shifting back to me. “It doesn’t change, though, that you’re young. And as a vampire many times your senior, I will offer you once piece of advice.” His frown deepened and I remained quiet, waiting for him to continue. Our gazes remained locked until he nodded. “Bury these scrolls and release your brother from the awful work of translating something I wouldn’t even look upon for fear of what it might do to the natural order. I don’t care if it’s the will of the Fates or not, they are using this human you care for to drive you to ruin.”
“I could no sooner abandon her than I could my calling,” I said.
“Even if it meant your death?” He laughed, the sound more sardonic than laden with amusement. “Peter. I have been alive for over five centuries. Of course I could tell you my suspicions and send you off to be killed, but then you would have me bear your soul on my conscience. As it is, you’ve already placed Sabrina’s there.”
I shook my head. “I don’t understand how you think yourself culpable for either of us.”
“Sabrina wasn’t just a visitor. She was a stray, taken in and mended when that demon of a maker she had left her for dead.” He smirked at what must have been a look of utter confusion on my face. “Yes, one sin begot another, young one. It happens more often than I wish it did. I brought in a wounded woman who turned into a spiteful vampiress, and she bread an immortal just as tied to whimsy as she had been. And it destroyed her in the end. It nearly destroyed Michael. It tore apart her coven and, it sounds, the covens of neutral, peaceable immortals in one city. It destroyed an entire culture and you still didn’t learn that lesson, even when you repented of being her assassin. If I care for your soul at all, it is because you don’t. And little wonder. You were reborn to be a servant, not a vampire.”
“I care very little for being either.”
“Which is why a human woman has your affections. You still deny what you’ve become.”
A wave of irritation rippled through me, causing me to bristle. “Master Grigore, with all due respect, I think you grossly underestimate what lies at stake here besides the life of my watcher. Ian Carmichael wanted these scrolls and had started to assemble them together himself.”
He waved his hand dismissively. “I know this Ian. I knew his maker, too. Another folly that begat more error. You did the will of the Fates in bringing him to his end, but I think you’ve been fooled into believing your service extends to continuing his work.”
“Would my brother have been restored to me otherwise?”
“Your brother being brought back to life is a reward to both you and him. One you should be more mindful of appreciating. Would you return him to hell when this mission backfires?” Grigore stood, pacing around his desk and walking to the liquor cabinet. Pulling the bottle of Scotch from the shelf, he freshened his drink and returned to his seat, perching on the edge while facing me. “Retire with Michael. Find this woman if you need to, have your brother turn her if it’s what pleases you, but leave the scrolls where they’ve been placed. I’m begging you.”
“Master Grigore, I believe you just as blinded by guilt as you perceive me compromised by love.” He narrowed his eyes, but I held my ground, tilting my head in defiance to him. “I cannot resign my commission and leave the world to burn when another dark magician comes looking for the remaining scrolls.”
A derisive chuckle accompanied him raising the glass to his mouth. He drank down a healthy swallow of liquor. “There are always times when our kind become drunk with power, but they never succeed.”
“Until the next time they find a would-be seer and do to him what Sabrina did to me.” I waited for his gaze to return to mine before continuing. “No. I lost my entire life to this. I perished and slaughtered and had everything taken from me. My hands were the ones which ended my former lover and her colleague. And I have bled more innocents than I have ended the wicked. My slate remains far from cleared. The next time an ambitious immortal comes around, seeking out the hands which might do their bidding, they might not find a man with others who would redeem him. They might find a soul that drowns within their machinations.”
Grigore remained silent, his eyes finally surrendering to a host of emotions. I saw the turmoil transparent in them, but I realized my words had broken through just enough for him to waver. He looked away, toward Nicolae, then glanced at Emil. The latter frowned at his maker just as a solemn grin surfaced on the coven master’s face. “You are far too young to be tasked with this mission,” he said. I could not be entirely certain he intended the statement for me.
I claimed it just the same. “Better me than another. Dragging Michael along to rescue my watcher might prove to be just as much of a suicide mission as it stands. Why should we risk our lives for anything less?”
“Why should you risk your lives at all?” Grigore looked back at me and sighed, his shoulders falling with the action. “What do you want from me? My blessing? My information? You are still asking me to carry the weight of your soul should you fail. And something still tells me you are very ill-prepared for what you might encounter along this path.”
I perked an eyebrow. “Is any man assigned with a difficult task fully prepared for it?”
“Oh stop it.” He succumbed to a much more ready grin. “I’m too old for such platitudes.”
Exchanging the grin, I attempted to shift focus. “Tell me how I might continue my work, and I promise to spare you any further ones.”
“The easier solution would be to banish you from my coven and tell you to convince another fool to be your informant.” Grigore lifted to a stand, placing his glass down on top of his desk and folding his arms across his chest. Looking over at Nicolae and Emil, he spoke to them in Romanian, adding a flick of his hand to whatever he said and evoking a few strains of protest from the pair. This, he answered with a calm, steady tone, which must have been enough to allay whatever concerns his children voiced. Nicolae rose to a stand first, abandoning his half depleted drink and cigar and forcing Emil to do the same.
I furrowed my brow as the two elder vampires shuffled toward the door. Nicolae scowled at me, but even in the action, I saw more concern than actual disdain. Emil flashed a small smile at me. They opened the door, disappearing into the hallway before shutting Grigore and I back into the confines of his office.
The coven master waited for them to depar
t, his shoulders straight and composure locked into place before the door could even click shut. “I told them I was accompanying you to your next destination.”
His words took me aback. I straightened in my chair, shifting to the edge of my seat. “I could not ask you to do that, Master Grigore.”
He smirked. “You care little for your life and want to concern yourself with mine? Now, you’re being a hypocrite.” The moment of levity passed, however. Reaching behind him for his glass, he lifted it and finished off its contents before slamming it back down onto his desk. “I don’t want to believe the Fates have suddenly turned capricious, but I’m too cynical not to doubt them.”
I nodded, failing to grasp what he meant, but not apt to look a gift horse in the mouth. “Very well, then. When shall we depart?”
“Tomorrow evening. Take care to put your affairs in order. And inform your brother of where you are.”
“He knows where I am.”
“Then I hope his luck might smile down upon us both.” Grigore sat on the edge of his desk once more, both palms resting atop the aged wood while his gaze fixed on the carpet. “Leave me. I’ll come find you when it’s time.”
“Very well, then.” Standing, I left my glass and cigar behind, the air heavy enough to push a weight onto my shoulders as I strode to the door. It swung open without any resistance, but still I lingered for an additional moment, watching Grigore as he remained motionless and pensive, and apathetic of my continued presence. A frown tugged at the corners of my mouth. I could not imagine what might have soured his disposition so greatly, but even when I shut the door, I failed to hear any movement on the other side of it. I felt like reminding him I had no need of his company. Or to that I had no difficulty snatching the one in India. A strong suspicion prompted me away from his office, however, telling me my objections would fall on deaf ears.