by J. Armand
The GPS. That was why this place was already in the GPS when Micah checked. He erased their memories, but without the memory they wouldn’t know to look it up until they came back here.
“Why?”
“Their visits help pass the time. It is a game I have played with their Brotherhood for generations. I enjoy the insight they offer into the mortal realm.”
“They aren’t exactly the best representatives for humanity.” My eyes strayed nervously around the room to avoid his penetrating gaze. I was afraid to ask what he wanted with me. An oil painting above the fireplace mantle caught my eye. It was a portrait of a beautiful woman with the same chestnut-colored hair as Castile, but her brooch was what struck me. It was the Archangel Amulet.
“An angel in every facet, isn’t she?” he asked.
“Yes, but that amulet… it’s the same as William’s.” William said he awoke from a dream where the Holy Spirit gave him the amulet. Was his dream related to this woman and the commands Castile had given him to return home to sleep in the past?
“It is the very same one. It was I who gave him the amulet, as I have given it to many before him. He came to me a frightened child searching for answers at the end of a blade. Now look at him. A fearsome warrior who wields his faith as a weapon, striking down all those who cross his path. Power is a terrible thing.
“How many souls has he reaped to feed his thirst for death? Do answers even hold importance to him anymore? He, like those before him, claimed to seek a power to appease their God, yet it was their own selfish lust they sought to fulfill once they had that power. Does God look down upon him now and smile? ‘Bleed dry the corpses of my creations, go forth and soak my grounds with their blood.’ Is that His message to the devout? A most interesting God indeed.”
“Why give him that power?”
“Because I too knew love once. The woman in that painting was my bride. She warmed the cold heart in this body after centuries of loneliness. I granted dear William use of the periapt during his first visit to see what choice he would make; accept his bride for what she had become and know true love, or turn it on her and spare her from the cruel injustices of a world that scorns the unfamiliar.”
“I don’t think he made a very good choice,” I said, thinking of what Micah had told me in the car on the way.
“That is your perspective. His faith is stronger than ever and he is filled with purpose. Maybe saving his beloved was never what he wanted in the first place. Perhaps he wanted someone upon whom to project his guilt.”
“Why did you want me to stay?” I finally worked up the courage to ask. Knowing my reputation with Ancients so far, the answer was likely because he wanted to use me for my power.
“There is a great darkness coming straight from the bowels of Hell,” he said. Those words alone made me shiver. It was something Aurelia’s sister, Rozalin, had said when we defeated her. She was another lunatic obsessed with power. Rozalin even went as far as to destroy her own physical body so she could become an incorporeal phantom to better seek revenge on her sister over a sibling rivalry. “It surrounds you and I both, all creatures living and not. Those more in tune with the universe, such as myself, can sense it looming closer. I can see past, present, and future. This darkness has risen before and soon it will rise again.”
He sounded more concerned. When it had come from Rozalin, amidst her deranged fits of laughter, the statement had seemed threatening.
“What do I have to do with this? Don’t tell me I’m fated to stop it or anything like that. I’m getting real tired of hearing what my powers can do when I can’t even live a halfway normal life for a day.”
“No. Your existence is inconsequential to the cycle. You are powerless to stop it and will most likely perish a hundred deaths to make it through to the other side.”
That was a bummer. I was expecting a rousing speech telling me how one person could change the world. Even if I didn’t believe I was that person, it would have been nice to hear. He sounded like Minerva, when she’d told us we were powerless before the great cycle we could never stop. All the Ancients seemed to speak in the same voice, as if they shared some universal consciousness. Maybe they just lived long enough to see history repeating itself.
The clocks struck two and I had to hold on not to be jolted out of my seat. There was a joke to be made about waking the dead somewhere in there.
“That was a quick hour,” I said, checking the clock.
“Was it? I find it fascinating that something so ephemeral as time can dominate so many. What is it about the unseen that enthralls us to the point that we base our lives around it? To me, it was an hour as any other. To you it was faster, and to the clock it is all the same. Our perspective guides our concept of time, like everything else. Reality is what we make it.”
“Why did you want to talk to me about this coming darkness?” I asked to get back on track and away from the philosophical mindfuck. “The other Ancients I’ve met have brought it up too. Some of them seem excited that Hell is going to spill onto the Earth and others are talking about how we’re all going to be destroyed or enslaved.”
“Apocatastasis. A belief the world will be reset to its original state. Tabula rasa, another clean slate. A cosmic cleanse that knows no end. But when it is through what will it mend?” Castile rhymed without the usual tone of frivolity you’d expect from a poem, although the subject matter didn’t necessarily call for lightheartedness. He had stayed civil so far, but I wasn’t about to drop my guard. Aurelia had been every bit as hospitable and then some when we first met.
“I assure you I am nothing like the wicked princess.”
“What princess?” I asked, a bit confused.
“I dare not honor her with a greater title. The wretched matron of the Archios.” He sounded disgusted, but remained polite.
“I never said anything about her.”
“Your unspoken words are just as loud.”
“You’re saying you can read my mind?” No one had been able to get inside my head since the ritual that had bonded me with the parasite. “The others, they can’t… I don’t understand.”
“I am not like the others.” Castile glanced around the room, preoccupied. “Our powers are akin to one another. I control the mind without limits, and you control matter. You are someone with the ability to bend reality to your will. Why put your life at the mercy of others? Why the charade with the Brotherhood?”
“They took me in. I was feeling them out to see if they were dangerous or if we could be friends.”
“Ah, a friendship based on deception. Truly poetic. You will make a marvelous Ancient in time. Aurelia will be so proud.”
“Why would I care about making her proud? She’s dead and I couldn’t be happier about it.”
Castile snapped his attention back to me. “Dead? I think not. She is no more dead than I. Our mutual enemy is quite well. Isn’t that right?” Castile directed his question to an empty wall.
“Who are you talking to?” I asked.
“Come now, don’t be rude,” Castile continued talking to the wall. “Skulking about in the shadows is no way to be a houseguest, uninvited or not.”
Dispersing his veil of invisibility, Noah stepped out from where Castile was gazing.
“Noah?! What are you doing here?” His wounds from William’s amulet had healed and his tattoos had been redone. I was happy to see him. Even after everything he’d put me through I did sort of miss him when he was gone.
“Has your fair lady finally entrusted you with the task of assassinating me? Or is it to reclaim your investment?” Castile was visibly amused for the first time that night.
“What investment? Is that true? Is she still ‘alive’?” I asked.
“He’s lying.” Noah’s teeth were clenched tight and his eyes were fixed on Castile.
“Go on, tell him,” Castile coaxed. “It is an easy thing to prove. The boy can simply travel there himself. Surely she is still prone to making herself a sp
ectacle.”
“No!” Noah demanded with his brow furrowed, still glaring at Castile as he spoke to me. “You were told what you needed to know.”
“Tell the boy how you never would have earned his trust without the guise of her death. How could he trust the puppet while the puppet master still pulled his strings?”
“What is going on?” I yelled. “What happened to all that talk about trusting each other?”
Noah didn’t answer. He wouldn’t even look at me. My anger was quickly coming to a head.
“Because you were to be his replacement,” Castile answered. “A trade.”
Noah’s muscles tensed and his hand hovered over the hilt of his katana.
“The boy deserves to know, does he not? The companion he once stood beside and looked up to was only teaching him to be an obedient slave.”
“You need to leave. Now,” Noah ordered, and vanished. I knew what was coming. He would strike out with lethal speed to behead Castile. First would come a horizontal slash across the midsection to cleave him in two, followed by a spinning slash to the neck from behind.
“Kneel,” Castile commanded. Noah’s attack was halted. He reappeared on one bended knee, growling and struggling against Castile’s mental dominance. “Turn the boy into a mindless killing machine and barter him for your freedom. Isn’t that right? Why else would dear sweet Aurelia allow you to stray so far for so long with someone she once wanted dead? Someone she once viewed as a threat to her immortality and wanted under her heel?”
“Best of all, it was his own idea from the start.” Castile gripped the back of Noah’s neck as if he was holding a dog by the collar. His eyes glowed eerily as he continued to probe Noah’s mind. “She thought the Strigoi creation an untamable beast to be put down, but he convinced her to let him try in return for his own freedom. How cruel to doom another to the same fate he laments each night.”
So he was evil. That was why the Archangel Amulet had burned him. Anger turned to rage inside me, but it would not take over. I wouldn’t allow it. I am not a mindless killing machine. I am not a monster, I thought.
“I knew you were an asshole on the surface, but I didn’t think you were anything like this.” I stood in front of Noah, who remained stiff. His nostrils flared as he stared at the floor, still fighting Castile’s hold on him. “I thought there was a good person buried deep under those rotten layers.”
“How I detest the Archios and their crass schemes. Aurelia and her subjects are amateurs at best, yet still they persist. Petty children playing a man’s game.” The doors to the mansion flew open as Castile cursed the Archios. A figure shrouded in crackling shadows dashed for us. It was the same person that I had taken the katana from in Manhattan. The enigmatic figure had replaced its lost sword with an ornate Asian-styled polearm.
“More uninvited guests.” Castile maintained his composure as he grabbed a walking stick from beside where we were sitting and used it to parry the shadow’s weapon. The two exchanged a barrage of blows. Castile didn’t move a foot out of place until finally his walking stick was snapped. Castile reached behind him and retrieved a sword from a suit of armor against the wall I would have sworn hadn’t been there a moment ago.
“We’re leaving.” Noah grabbed me by the back of shirt. He’d been freed from Castile’s hold without my noticing.
“Get off of me.” I pushed him away. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”
I went to Castile’s aid, using my telekinetic grip on the shadow’s polearm. The figure swung over it in an acrobatic leap to dodge Castile. The polearm released a stream of electricity that coursed through my body. Castile’s sword was knocked from his hand, leaving him defenseless. His eyes turned bright red as he stood his ground. The servants came into the room, clamoring as they got closer. Their eyes glowed red to match.
“Bear witness to the true horrors of the mind.” Castile stretched out his arms and the servants began to transform into hideous floating monstrosities with empty eye sockets, contorted faces and deformed appendages. Their skins dripped off like liquid and snaked across the floor. They converged on the shadowy figure as Castile took a step back and melted into the wall to become one with the mansion. All the lights in the house were extinguished, leaving us in total blackness for a moment. I could hear the distorted shrieks and screams of the servants as the figure swung at them in the dark.
“I can see your fears.” Castile’s voice echoed from the walls. The room lit up red as innumerable eyes of various sizes opened from the walls and focused on the figure. The shadows concealing it were banished by whatever terrifying power Castile used. The figure was revealed as an Asian man with very long hair dressed like an ancient warrior.
“Remain in obscurity, fallen prince.” Castile spoke again, his voice sounding much more demonic. The marble floor swirled beneath the man like quicksand and pulled him down. I was floating far enough away to avoid being sucked in too. I noticed none of the furniture or anything else was affected.
Only the man’s head remained above ground as the building began to quake. A bolt of lightning crashed through the ceiling and exploded upon making contact with the warrior. The monstrosities and ocular manifestations were purged by the blast and the building began to crumble. The once-beautiful house was no more than an illusion that dispersed to show the truth that lay underneath. A dilapidated ruin caked with dust and left for centuries in disrepair was all that remained. The paintings and furniture had been transformed by the illusion; now it was obvious that they were neglected and forgotten. Castile had been living in his own reality. His will was so strong that the world itself bent to his will to create his ideal home.
Castile fell from the wall, his body disintegrating to ash before it reached the ground. The one peaceful Ancient had been destroyed by the same killer I’d failed to stop in Manhattan. If this person was strong enough to destroy an Ancient, I did not have an easy fight ahead of me.
The Asian warrior leapt at me, but was taken down in mid-air by Noah, who had reappeared on the scene. The longer they fought, the faster Noah struck to try and get a hit in, but the warrior parried his every attempt. I couldn’t see Noah’s movements anymore. I could only hear the clink of metal after each attack landed. At the speed he was going his strikes sounded like a machine gun. I had no idea how the Asian warrior was keeping up. He didn’t move anywhere near as fast as Noah, who was completely invisible because of his incredible speed, but somehow he pre-empted every strike.
I’d had the chance to get rid of Noah once when fighting the Carpathians and I chose to save him instead. That had been a mistake. But now I had the chance again. If I killed Noah I would be done with his deceitful games, and the other warrior would be worn down from the two battles he’d already fought.
The rhythm of Noah’s strikes varied on purpose to try and throw off his opponent, but it also made it hard for me to predict where he’d be. Then again, what reason did I have to be accurate? I got a vague glimpse of Noah in the blur around the other man and unleashed a telekinetic blast. The polearm-wielding warrior was thrown through the wall and tumbled helplessly down the clearing, smashing most of his armor along the way. I flew through the unearthed dust to follow after him, hoping I’d hit Noah too. Strangely, none of the debris landed outside the mansion. It all just seemed to disappear past the outer wall.
“Nice hit.” Noah emerged from the dust cloud unscathed.
“I was aiming for you,” I retorted.
“I know! Just like old times.” It was just like him not to take any of this seriously. He vanished again as a whistling sound approached. I looked to where the other man had been thrown just as his polearm streaked across the grass and went right through me, pinning me to a wall back in the mansion.
“You should dodge that.” Noah appeared over me. I pulled the polearm from my body as a lightning bolt crashed through the ceiling and struck me. I was so infuriated I didn’t even feel the pain. Plus, the last change of clothes I’d probably have
for days had just been ruined. The Asian man seemed surprised I was still alive when he came to reclaim his weapon. Noah took the opportunity to stab him in the back while he was unarmed and I used my chance to smash them both between two bookcases. I sent them back outside, but the bookcases disappeared past the walls of the mansion just as the debris had. How much of this place wasn’t real?
“You think that guandao would look good above my bed?” Noah shouted from a balcony above. I pulled the crumbling balcony out from under him, expecting him to reappear behind me. He did just what I’d planned, but as I struck he turned back into mist. My blast traveled through him and hit the other man, who was charging for us.
I was letting myself get too caught up in the fight, something I’d been taught not to do. I had to be smarter about this. I flew up above the field and out of reach to force the other two to go back to fighting each other. The polearm was again thrown toward me. I had the advantage of height and it missed me by several feet. The Asian warrior must be tiring out, or so I thought. The polearm continued to soar until it pierced the clouds. There was a loud crack of thunder as the clouds swirled around the sky where the polearm had vanished. This was going to hurt.
The sky lit up and lightning razed the ground, hitting me several times as I spiraled downward out of control and hit the ground.
“Remember when I taught you to fly and I said the high ground has the advantage?” I heard Noah’s voice and felt a nudge to my side before I got my vision back. “I didn’t mean against someone who can call lightning.”
I couldn’t hold in my anger any longer. “Don’t worry about me, I’m just getting warmed up,” I coughed.
“Really? I’d say you’re more well done.” Noah laughed at his own bad joke and disappeared again. He made it easy to want to hurt him. I no longer wondered whether I’d feel bad or not after I got rid of him for good.
He and the other warrior went back to their stalemate as I sat on the grass and watched.
“Are you going to help?” Noah asked between slashes. “I feel like you’re mad at me.”