by Aya Walksfar
I strode over and reached toward his face. The young Guardian flinched. Laughter burbled from me as I patted his cheek gently. “You have much to learn. Come along.”
Now I stood in front of the candles at my altar beneath the ruins of my old home and still the voices in my head mocked and taunted. Briefly, I wondered where the female voice had gone. Probably didn’t believe in me as much as she claimed.
Why do the ones who profess to believe in me turn away during the hours of my greatest need?
With a shrug, I flung away such a heretical thought. I didn’t need anyone. As I accrued Power, as I learned the methods for increasing magical strengths, I would never again need anyone.
How lonely it is, Princess Serena, if you never allow yourself to need anyone; never allow yourself to take that risk. The memory of Gregory’s deep voice reached inside me and scooped out an awful cavity.
I clutched my chest and cried out, “Leave me alone! I killed you! I don’t need you harping at me from the Other Side.” Collapsing to my knees, I bent until my forehead touched the stone floor. “Damn it, Gregory,” I whimpered, “you can’t help me; no one can.”
When the cold of the stone seeped into my bones, I grasped the edge of the altar and dragged myself to my feet. The ache had settled firmly behind my breastbone, but I ignored it. The maggots of doubts and regrets would not burrow into my mind; would not undermine what I had built.
The candles had all been snuffed out; almost as if Gregory blew out their unholy light. I turned away from that thought. A stray breeze must have blown them out.
No breeze can enter the basement. I brushed aside the nagging thought.
Carefully, I relit the candles and began the ritual. I raised the still-warm, beating heart of the young Warrior to my lips. At least, Adele had proven good for something. As the other Guardians retreated with their cowardly general, Adele had removed the Warrior’s heart before she followed me.
The spell I had cast on the prisoners before beginning their torture had kept their hearts alive until I could harvest the magic from them. That spell brushed its bristles across the skin of my lips. Fire trailed behind the feel of the bristles. Teeth gritted against the burn, I bit into the bloody flesh.
As soon as I swallowed the chunk of muscle, a sense of wrongness enveloped me. Cold blackness pulled me down.
****
“You’re going straight to Caine’s Hells.” The young Warrior danced gleefully around me
“She’s not even good enough for Caine’s Hells,” the warlock growled.
A fledgling witch giggled, really a child still at eleven, her Power now forever unrealized. It had been potent in all of its unripe potential. “Where’s your daughter, Serena? Where’s your daughter? Will you eat her, too?”
Kneeling, cowering, I slapped my hands over my ears. “Go away! I killed you! I drank you down! I ate your flesh and burned your hearts!”
Something yanked my hair. I jerked my head up and glared around.
Voices laughed, echoing in the Cold-Between. Shivering, I wrapped my arms around my waist and hunched over them. The cold numbed my fingertips until they ached with it. It splintered in my lungs, piercing me from the inside--a thousand tiny needles.
A weight slammed into my back. A werepanther growled, then razor sharp teeth ripped my shoulder. I screamed and grabbed the injured shoulder. Warm blood, my blood, seeped around my fingers.
“She’s not strong enough,” the male voice chortled. “Just wait, she’ll dissolve into a weeping heap in a little while.”
“Maybe not. There is that armored place inside. If she ever thinks to retreat there, none of these ghosts,” contempt dripped from the word ghosts, “can touch her. She’ll be invincible,” a female voice gloated.
I wanted to weep for joy. She was back! The female had returned. But, wait, it wasn’t the same female whose voice had argued with the male before. This female didn’t whimper arguments that goodness--weakness--lived somewhere inside me. This female wanted me to be strong. To be victorious.
A hand whipped from the blackness. The slap left an angry sting on my cheek. I clamped my lips shut. They would not get the satisfaction of hearing me cry out. Never again. They could torture me and I would not cry out. I would not beg to be released from the black dungeon. I would not whimper against the cold, the bone cracking cold.
A fist flew out of the darkness and slammed into the side of my head. I felt my skull cave under the impact.
Blackness swallowed my consciousness to the sound of gleeful laughter.
****
When I stirred, pain speared through my head. Goosebumps pebbled my skin. My bones felt frozen, as if the least movement would shatter them into a million shards. Smoke from blown out candles drifted on the stale air. The rancid smell of burned blood filled my nostrils.
The coppery taste of blood lingered on my tongue. My blood? My prey’s blood? The taste was too old to parse out hints of flavor.
Slowly, I rocked to my side then up on my feet. Aches lodged in every muscle of my body. Carefully, I breathed out the words that released the circle so I could breach its perimeter safely. It required two tries before the circle released. The magic from the ingested witch’s blood had rapidly weakened.
Soon I would need to locate and harvest another witch. An older one this time--one whose blood may not hold so much wild potential, but the effects would last longer.
I staggered out of the hidden door. Standing in the shadows of the trees, I fingered the amulet around my neck. The tingle of the look-away spell barely tickled the skin of my chest. Another thing I would have to renew soon.
When I arrived at my apartment, I walked through the bedroom and into the connected bath area. Steam from a tub of hot water helped to clear my head as I sank into its warmth. The chill of skin and bone resisted the warming effects, but eventually the shaking ceased.
Lethargy weighed my eyelids and they drifted shut.
****
“Why, Serena? Why are you doing this?” Alexis’ voice asked.
I spun around. A crossroads. How had I wound up in the middle of a crossroads?
“Serena, answer me. I can’t help you, if I don’t understand,” urgency infused Alexis’ voice, making me ache to respond.
“Where are you?”
“I'm right here, Serena. I have always been right here.” A feather touch on my chest caused me to jerk back. I would have fallen if not for my vampire reflexes.
“Why can’t I see you?” I demanded. My arms wrapped around my chest as my eyes swiveled this way and that way. All I saw was trees, and the four roads that curved through thick forest.
“You don’t want to see me, Serena. You don’t want to see the truth.”
“What truth?” A sneer twisted my voice into something harsh. “The truth is that vampires have been toadies to humans for far too long. This war, this destruction that murders my People would never have occurred had I been stronger. A vampire is not meant to drink sips of old blood that tastes of plastic; a subsistence of blood. A banquet of fresh blood would have kept me strong.”
“Oh, Serena, see the truth. Open your eyes. I am right here where I have always been and where I always will be.”
I snorted a laugh. “Really, Alexis? Will you be at my side in a hundred, two hundred years? No, you won’t. You will abandon me just as all the others have done.”
“Open your eyes, Serena. See the truth. See....the....truth.” The dark sucked Alexis’ voice away.
“Alexis? Alexis! Answer me!” Panic surged through me.
“Why should she answer you, Serena Longer, First Councilwoman of the North American Vampires?”
I turned toward the melodious voice. The Lady stood between two Grandmother Cedars. I gasped. “You’re not real. You can’t be.”
“Real, Serena? What is real?”
A hysterical laugh exploded from me. “I'm dreaming. I’ve fallen asleep in my bath and I'm dreaming.”
“There isn’t
much time left, Serena.” The warm gaze hardened into a wall of steel. “Open your heart to Truth while you still can.”
Before I could respond I jerked awake, slopping water from the tub onto the tile floor.
Chapter 32
Alexis Night Runner
Battered, carrying our wounded, I led our unit to the hidden vehicles then drove back to the witch’s compound. In the back of my mind some voice nagged that I had missed an important lesson hidden in the books in Patrice’s extensive library.
Instead of lending me the books, the elder had insisted that we remain for a couple of weeks to rest and renew ourselves; to give the weary and the injured time to fully heal.
After a week of rest and prowling through the underground room--that should have smelled musty and damp, but instead had a light scent of lavender that lingered in the air—I had found exactly nothing. Not even one hint to guide me. I shook the tiredness from my mind and returned the heavy volume to the shelf in the exact position in which I had found it. Patrice said the old books arranged themselves how they wanted to be and it was best to respect their wishes.
The volumes marched in tidy rows. What order did they maintain and why? Irritated at my wandering thoughts when the urgency of passing time pressed upon me, I ran a hand down my face, attempting to wipe away the fatigue.
Maybe the order of the books wasn’t random? Curiosity pricked me. I stepped closer to the shelves, running my gaze over the spines. With a fingertip, I traced across books bound with bark, books bound with leather, books bound with a variety of cloths.
On the fifth shelf of the fifth bookcase the volumes’ titles snatched the blanket of exhaustion off my brain. Adrenaline zinged through me. Hurrying back to the beginning of the long shelf, I began to slowly and carefully read the titles that ran along the book spines.
The Birth of Evil; Treatises by Matriarch Belora on the Existence of Good and Evil; Words Of Power Against Evil From Great Mother Aleeya; Spells to Fight Darkness; The Abiding Night; The Cold Black--on and on the shelf ran, every title dealing with the presence of Evil, the presence of Darkness.
Mesmerized, I drifted along, touching each book for the second, the third, and then the fourth time. Candlelight flickered and drew my eyes. Hmm, did the candles burn really fast or have I been browsing these shelves that long?
Exhausted. I can’t keep track of time because I'm exhausted. I needed to quit browsing and pick another book. They weren’t going to leap off the shelves and flip open their own covers to the spell for which I searched.
The answers had to lie in this vast library beneath the witch’s mansion. These bookcases held the wisdom, the knowledge, and the conjecture of thousands upon thousands of hereditary witches, esteemed vampires and other Supernaturals. The answer to the evil that coated Serena’s Spirit and sickened her Soul had to lie within this room. It was my last hope.
Pivoting, my fingertip slid from the spine of the book at which I had halted. Immediately, an overwhelming urge forced me to turn back around and lay my hand on the book, again. A frown bunched my brows. Tentatively, I removed my hand from the book once more. An insistent and strong tug pulled at me until I touched the book’s spine once more.
Head cocked, I contemplated the book. Not a large volume, compared to some of the others. The black spine glistened like the moist skin of some water creature.
Mouth pressed into a thin line, I moved my finger from the book and quickly pressed the tip against a random book a few inches to the right. The cover beneath the fingertip felt slimy and made me want to rub my hand on the leg of my jeans. I slid my pointer finger to the book next to that one. This cover felt rough and gritty as if it longed to sand away my skin and make me bleed. My hand involuntarily jerked away from that book.
With a determined move, I spun around and took two full steps before the pull from the book shot bolts of fire through my stomach. I gasped and swiveled around; practically racing back to the book. As soon as I touched it, the heat subsided to a warm, welcoming glow.
The letters on the spine read in bold, plain script Basic Spells, yet even as I watched, they melted and writhed into a flowing script. Slowly the letters reformed. This time they read--Overcoming the Darkness Within.
A self-help book? Seriously? Pulling it from the shelf, I flipped to the fly leaf. An unreadable language, handwritten in an ornate script, scrawled across the page. As I began to close the volume, the script softened and reformed, a letter at a time.
Eyes glued to the page, I held my breath as the words formed--Blessed Be in this Year of Goddess 525. Unable to look away from the page, I ambled over to the table and eased into the chair as the page turned by itself and more script melted and flowed and reformed.
****
The only spell that can fight ignorance is knowledge. The only knowledge worthy of seeking is the knowledge from within. Not all knowledge within leads to the Light.
I, Priestess Isea of the Witches of Seven Lands, have felt an unnatural chill in some parts of the village. Yet each time I seek its source, it dissipates like the fog of a child’s mundane dreams.
The page continued to detail how Isea arose every morning before Grandmother Moon retired; how she tramped beside each hut with her senses wide open. The feeling that the answer lay close to her haunted the young priestess. Fifteen pages in, Isea’s words chilled me.
I feel a greasy darkness hovering over the village, as if it lives and breathes and waits to pounce on the unwary. I have sent word to High Priestess Salendra that I fear an Evil lurks about. Just last eve, I received word by way of Crystal Talk that a contingent of Priestesses would arrive within two new moons.
I pray that it is in time. I fear the Presence that grows heavier in the air, almost as if it seeks to enter our people on the very breath of life.
Three dawnings before the priestesses arrived, Isea penned these words in a shaky hand--
As I once again fought The Darkness--this time within a child--I felt its tentacles put sharp hooks in my Spirit. Now, after these past three sunrises, I feel it growing ever stronger. I have bathed in the river many times every day; I have entered the Sweat House and sat within its healing steam from dusk until Sun is golden above me. The Darkness remains; It grows.
Just last eve I slapped a village child for racing up and touching my robes. Even now I feel the tingle of my palm against her smooth cheek. I am sickened for though a tiny part of me is repelled by my action, a larger part revels in the shocked look that crossed her eyes, and the fear that rose like steam from her body.
The book flipped through pages. The edges passed so quickly that they blurred. When they stopped and the book lay open and quiescent once again, I watched a different script from a bolder hand reform the written text.
I, Elder Priestess Calee, write with sorrowful heart. Myself and four other Priestesses entered High Lake village yestereve, sent here by High Priestess Salendra in answer to Priestess Isea’s Call. No birds sang from the trees by the path to the village well.
An unnatural stillness held Sister Wind prisoner as soon as we stepped across the cast circle of the village, though just a while ago She danced with wild abandon among the new leaves beside the road we walked.
In the first hut lay a mother and babe in arms. Their chests had been smashed open and their hearts ripped out. I shuddered at the foul stench that lingered in the stale air--a stench that brings to mind the rotting of carrion--and quickly waved the other priestesses back. Having already been exposed to whatever Sickness lay in the air, I warned the others not to enter any enclosed space.
I entered every hut that lined the village’s inner circle. In each one lay a bloody tale the likes of which I have never seen.
As Sun climbed into Sky this morn, I dragged the bodies out to the unlit pyre. The other priestesses built the pyre out of trees from beyond the village’s circle for even the trunks of the trees within the village boundary feel greasy.
Tho I grunted with effort--for one as aged as I
cannot expect the strength of youth--I refused to allow the others to touch the shells of the people. Even with cloth bound around my face until only my eyes are exposed, and cloth bound around my hands, I feel a slime coating my skin. I pray to Goddess that the waters beyond the village can cleanse me for I fear this feeling.
****
Grandmother Moon turns her face fully upon us and blesses us with Her silver light. The pyre blazes as blue flame battles red flame and oily black smoke pours from the pile. I ordered the others beyond the village boundary before I called forth Cleansing Fire. Standing here, I wonder whether this Darkness dragged Priestess Isea away, or if this Darkness lived within her. I failed to find her body, tho I searched the village seven times.
I will take this journal with me. Outside of the village I will cleanse myself, Goddess Willing, and then I will pour my sorrow and my tears upon the journal’s cover as I pray for the Souls that were lost.
The journal pages turned as if possessed by the urgency I felt. When it again stopped and fell open, I eagerly scanned the entries.
It has been many years since I, Elder Priestess Calee, left the village of High Lake. Since that time I have been called to three other villages by a priestess’ message that echoes the message Priestess Isea sent that long ago day.
Each time, I have gathered four other Priestesses and have journeyed as quickly as we could urge our mounts to the beset villages. Each time I have arrived at a village of death. Each time the hearts of the villagers have been ripped from their chests, the bones within them shattered, splintered as if some great hand slammed through the wall of skin and bone to remove their hearts.
I have found the journals of each priestess that called for assistance, but I have yet to find even one of their bodies.
The years bow my shoulders and time cloaks my eyes. Soon the Great Mother will call and I will answer Her joyfully. Even the blazing hearth in winter can no longer battle the stiffness and the constant cold in my bones.