The Fire Within (The Fire of The Soul Series)

by Racquel Kechagias

  "I'm sorry Sir, my daughter and I have no skills to offer to you. If we did, we would have been honoured to serve our King and country in any means possible. You are still however, welcome to use our housing as you please. As the humans say, Mi casa es su casa," Angeline says, before licking at the trickle of blood that runs from the corner of her lips.

  "Of course, and thank you for your generosity Madam," I say before standing up, my team following me as Helen directs us to our rooms.

  "You three boys will have to share a room, as we only have the one guest room," Helen says as we make our way up the stairs. "As for you Miss, you'll be sharing my bedroom with me. I hope that's okay?" Jocelyn doesn't make a sound of protest, and neither do we. The night is a bit more comforting in each other's presence, and we relax as we fall asleep, small quite talk passing between us until the only sounds left is our breathing.

  "Kayden," She breaths, her warm breath tickling my skin, stirring the strands of hair that hang in my face. "Kayden, wake up," She says again, her warm hands finding purchase on my shoulders.

  "Angeline?" I ask my voice thick and croaky with need. Her hands halt for a moment, as if shocked to be confused for the person who I am truly calling for.

  "No, I'm not Angeline. You need to get up and to get out. She's draining you of your blood, soon there will be no more blood within you, and you'll outlive your purpose," The woman stops for a moment, as if the thought is just sinking in. "She has no use for things without purpose." I reach up for the woman's face, my fingertips brush against her soft lips.

  "Who are you, and why do you care?" I ask, now knowing that she is a friend and not an enemy.

  "I'm a friend, and let's just say I'm doing a favour for someone else," The woman says, as she pulls me up to a sitting position. She helps me put my shoes on and I reach out for her again.

  "Who?" I ask, her amber eyes meet my eyes, there's a darkness in her eyes, which terrifies me, what horrors has she known?

  "King Menédez, your Oath Brother," She says, as she kneels before me, she gets up onto her own feet before pulling me up as well, and leading me out the door. We run leaving a scorning, loathing Angeline behind us.

  The light outside is a dull grey, an early predawn light that seeps underneath the thin, shabby window curtains. I can see Scott in one bed, and Edgar on a mattress placed on the hard wood floor boards and standing in the doorway, what must have awoken me from my memory filled dreams, was the vampire that had saved me from a life of a 'blood-bag', Jocelyn.

  "Joyce," I whisper, beckoning her to come to me. She smiles sweetly, as she makes her way over to the bed, and gets underneath the blankets snuggling against me. Her small body fits perfectly against mine, and as I wrap my arms around her body, I place a gentle kiss against her forehead. "I was just dreaming of the night you saved me from this house." I tell her and I feel her sigh against my chest.

  "I was just thinking about it too, and that poor fellow that she was feeding on tonight. You were lucky, you had someone that wanted to save you, but him, I don't know if he'll even survive the end of the week let alone the end of the month. Considering how sallow he looked." Jocelyn's breath is thick and heavy, against my cheek.

  "For months after you saved me, I wasn't myself. I had in-fact, forgotten who I was. I couldn't do anything without being scared that I was going to do something wrong, and be punished for it. It wasn't until we were fighting around in the arena, and you beat me that I realized that to heal, and get over it all, that I would have to pull myself together. That, and the fact that I couldn't allow a girl to beat me," I say, turning to the girl beside me, the girl with the brightly burning amber eyes that shine like hot coal.

  "And you eventually came to your sense, and were able to beat me in the arena. However, I enjoyed myself in the time that it took for you to do so," Jocelyn says, before leaning up and placing her soft lips on mine. I allow myself to indulge in the warmth of her soft kisses before I have to pull away for breath and the need to get up and out before we are all trapped.

  "We have to go, before the sun-rises. Before she rises. We can't afford to be trapped in here with her," I say, getting up and making Jocelyn move as well. "Go; get everything read for our departure. I'll wake up Scott and Edgar." Jocelyn dashes out the door before I can say another word, and as I pull on my pants, I quickly make my way over to Scott's bed to rouse him, before I make my way over to Edgar's bed to rouse him as well. We quickly dress ourselves, and without them asking me any questions, we make our way outside before the sun even rises. There is no way that I am staying here any longer than need be, not with that devil of a woman in that house.

  The great blue is within sight from the two-story, cabin and we race toward it, Thunder, Latte, Jet and Star carrying us as they run, their legs pounding against the ground, their steps thrum with the beats of my heart. It is a very short ride from the house to the shore line, the sun barely moving from one point to another in the sky before we have arrived at the Shore, the boundary line of Atlantis the Mer-kingdom. The house - and the ghosts and memories it had raised within me - has been left far behind, and now we are back on track, our mission before us.

  No-one ever dares to enter Atlantis, the deep, black waters are enough to drive anyone away from its shore lines, but what most people fear is the barely human creatures that roam the waters. There are more in the depths of the ocean, of Atlantis then the Mer-people; who resemble humans but have little compassion. There are legends of what could be within these black waters, legends to scare children away from the shores, from the all-consuming waters. Legends that tell of things that seek nothing but the deaths of 'land-walkers', things with souls as black as the waters that they swim within. No light reaches the bottom of these waters, and we are about to find out how far their depths are.

  Within my pocket is a small, plastic bag and within this is the only thing that a 'land-walker' can use to breath when crossing through the waters, if they are willing to face the danger. These are a part of legend too, small slimy leaves, harvested from the bottom of the waters, that allow our bodies and lungs to take the oxygen from the water, allowing us to breath. There is only one within the bag as I am the only one within my group of four that need to breathe. Jocelyn, Scott and Edgar are all vampires, their need for air is superficial, a want that their dead bodies remember from their living days. I am a Shape-shifter, still a living, breathing person. My need for air is simply that a need, something far more necessary than any of them could believe.

  I can feel eyes on me, and as I lift my eyes to Jocelyn I find that it is she who has been watching me. I raise an eyebrow at her, questioning her with the simple look, she only smiles and shakes her head.

  "Eat it, Kayden. So we can get this over and done with," She says, as she pulls out a slim hair elastic, pulling up her dark curls into a tight bun. Edgar and Scott only give a slight shrug of their shoulders when I turn to them. Looking back down to the slimy leaf, I bite my tongue and gathered my courage, as I take the leaf out of the slim bag and stick it down my throat. Instantly, I want to spit it back out, but I cannot allow myself to do it, or rather, I should say, that I physically cannot do it. My lips are already closing shut, my skin on the sides of my neck ripping apart, leaving gaping, bloody wounds. The taste of the leaf itself is nasty, revolting, it feels as if I am licking the back of a salty, slimy frog, but it is working its magic because I can already feel as if I cannot breathe the air surrounding me. I reach up to touch the skin on the sides of my neck and find three open wounds on each side of my neck, slim as if the tip of a knife had been sliced upon the skin, but the flapping open skin proves how deep the cut is. I realize as I touch the wounds, that these are gills. Retrieving my hands, I see the blood of the wounds upon my fingers, dark and awfully bright.

  The call of the ocean is strong, beautiful and all-consuming; it seems to whisper to me, calling to me as it promises love, warmth and comfort. That the sins of the land-walkers will be washed away in its depths, and I
abandon all my doubts of Atlantis, and walk into its elusive light that is within sight, but never within reach. I can hear footsteps behind me, and before I can think, I've turned around snarling and growling at the land-walkers behind me. Atlantis, the mother of all oceans, is no place for them; it is a place where they are not welcome. My instincts are natural, as if I've never known anything else, but my mind and my heart recognizes the hurt on Jocelyn's face, and the surprise on Scott's and Edgar's. They were not anticipating this, nor was I. I turn away from them once more, refusing to think upon the hurt on her face, and I walk into the oceans welcoming depths that recognize me as one of her own.

  I don't know how long I walk for, I seem to float at times and when I start to swim I find such freedom and joy in it, that I have to remember who I am and where I come from. I am a Shape-shifter - a land-walker - intruding on one of the only places that has been untouched by anything above these waters.

  Time loses its meaning in these cold depths and it is only as I see the bright golden hue of Atlantis, that the hope of never finding it flees my mind. My movement, my pace quickens as I approach Atlantis, and before long I am walking on the golden streets of Atlantis. I can feel eyes on me everywhere, watching me as I make my way through what appears to be an empty city, but I know that they are here somewhere, their need to know who the intruder is forces their attention to me, makes them watch me with every step that I can take.

  I want to scream at them to reveal themselves, to show me their hiding places, demand to see their leader but I can not, my lips have shut permanently when I had digested that damn plant, I cannot say a word, but I can think it. I guess thinking it is simply enough though because soon as I have made a single thought, I am engulfed in a swarm of Mer-men their fishy tails making sharp cuts through the water, their broad shoulders and sculpted muscles fill my vision, blocking out any part of their world that I have seen as they create a circle around me. In their hands are weapons, either spears or tridents, and I can feel the anger and hatred they feel to an outsider, to a land-walker and I know that without a doubt I am in trouble.

  Their raspy voices howl as one, demanding answers to their questions, but the leader of the pack hushes them all as his voice infiltrates my thoughts. "Land-walker, it does not matter how you got here. You have broken the treaty between us and your kind, and for this the penalty is death." I can see his trident pointed toward my chest, his intention to thrust the weapon through my chest clear. I am waiting for the blow, and wondering why it has not been delivered yet, when the look in the leaders eyes change, from hatred to confusion and then to determination.

  "Your death is inevitable Land-walker, but for the moment you have been given the chance to evade your fate. For now your fate rests within my queen’s hands, God have mercy on you." Those are the last words that echo within my mind as he - the nameless leader - turns away from me. Shackles bind my hands, and I am dragged to the castle of Atlantis and it's Queen.

  I quickly find myself kneeling before the Queen of Atlantis, her cerulean blue hair floating softly around her, tossed gentle by the constantly moving water. There is a dagger made from a sharks tooth held against my throat, making me inept to move. Her black eyes take me in - gills and all - and the wicked smile on her lips tells me she is up to no good, but I cannot begin to think what can be going on in her mind, my mind being too focused on all that is going on around me.

  "I know of you, Land-walker. You are the pure vampires king's most trusted. No doubt you have come down here on his orders. The question is why did he send you down here?" She says at last, after what feels like an eternity of waiting. Her pacing comes to a stop and her eyes turn to me again, questioning. I realize that she expects me to answer her question.

  I try to open my mouth, desperate to explain myself, but I struggle to open my lips, struggle to speak. She cusses in a strange language before she says in English "Shadowblue! Curse you Land-walker, I don't know how you got your hands on a Shadowblue leaf, but you should be killed for even eating it! How dare you think you can walk into my kingdom, and believe that we'll let you leave alive!" She continues to grumble to herself, clearly upset that I'm down here in the first place. "Curse you Stheno! Damn this silence!" She turns to me again; her eyes ablaze with her anger, and points a shaking finger at me. A slight shudder races through out my body, rearranging from my chest to the tip of my hairs.

  I gasp, able to breath, to move my lips, to speak. She has release me of the lock that the Shadowblue leaf had on me. "Now that you are able to speak Land-walker, tell me why you have come here? What do you want of me and my people?"

  "My King has sent me here to speak to you about joining us for the war. We need your help; we cannot win against the Skin-walkers without the Underworld being completely united. Please your Majesty, help us," I ask, gasping for breath from time to time. My lungs inhale the water but it makes no difference to how I am breathing underwater.

  "How unfortunate for you that the Skin-walkers have already sent down people to persuade me, and unfortunately for them they did not succeed in their task. The war of the Land-walkers is your war, it is not ours, and thus we will not take part in it. However, fortunately for you, you are smarter than they were as you came alone." I understand what she means though; you only need one messenger to deliver a message.

  "Your Majesty?" I ask, hoping for permission to leave. I have to return to Jocelyn, Scott and Edgar. She simply raises an eyebrow at me and sighs, whether out of frustration or exasperation I could not tell.

  "Leave now Land-walker, before I change my mind." That is my dismissal and the order for her men to release me all in one, and I swim out of there as fast as I can. I cannot hear what she says as I make my way out of the door, but it doesn't matter, I am free now, released from the Mer-peoples hold, and on my way home.

  Waiting on the shore line is the three people I had left behind. Scott is tending to the horses, Edgar is building a fire in the sand, and Jocelyn sits by herself, facing toward the ocean. I know above all else that she is waiting, watching for me, and I feel self-loathing as I remember our farewell. Her eyes are the first to see me, and her gasp of exclamation alerts Scott and Edgar of my return.

  I crawl up the sand bank, straight out of the water, shivering and dripping wet, coughing up the Shadowblue leaf, and the water that had entered into my lungs. I can see that Jocelyn is wanting to help me, but because of my aggressive nature toward her when I had swallowed the leaf, she has doubts of whether to approach me or not.

  "Joyce," I cry when I have finally spat out that damn leaf. Her eyes shine with joy, recognizing that I am no longer under the influence of the Shadowblue leaf, she runs to me, throwing her arms around me as she cries to the guys to bring a blanket.

  "Are you okay?" She asks softly, her words holding so much meaning that I can not begin to describe. I look up into that ever-beautiful face, and those amber eyes, my lips curving up into a soft smile.

  "I am now." She seems to be overjoyed at this. Jocelyn helps me to the campsite, and sits me down on a log a few steps back from the fire. We eat a light meal, consisting of a kind of meat - that Edgar informed me he hunted for nearby - and bread. We sit in silence as we digested the food that they had been able to muster up. As night falls, and we sit around the camp fire, small talk beginning to rise from all of us, we came to the discussion of what happened.

  "What happened in Atlantis?" Edgar asks, in his deep, dark velvety voice. He seems to almost blend into the night, besides the soft firelight that illuminates his face, I cannot see him.

  "Well I was discovered, almost killed for being a Land-walker, was taken to the Queen who cussed and cursed like a Skin-walker, was told that the enemy had beaten us down there, and that she had killed all but one of them, for she only needed one messenger to deliver her message. I was told that I was lucky to have come alone, because I didn't have to watch any of my friends die, and was then released. Oh and they refuse to help us claiming that our war is not their prob
lem," I say, delivering the message in one blow. None of them can say anything to that, and I can't blame them. The rest of the night is spent in each others company, Jocelyn spending the late night in my arms as the fire's embers dim, and I fall asleep, content for once in this vast world.

  The late morning light, and the sound of movement and hushed voices finally wakes me from my deep slumber. Jocelyn has gone from the tent, but I am aware of her presence just beyond it. I get up groggily, dressed in nothing but my pants. I pull on my shirt as I exit the fairly large tent, and find that all three members of my team are awake, and packing up camp.

  "So what’s the plan Kayden?" Scott asks, his deep German voice resonating from his chest. They all seem to share the same thought and I shrug my shoulders slightly as I sit down on one of the logs, rubbing at my face from the exhaustion that had taken a firm hold on me.

  "There is no plan, we have no more orders from this point," I say. Jocelyn takes a seat next to me before she hands me the second metal mug in her hands, filled with hot coffee; made from the crushed coffee beans found in the Forbidden woods; where werewolves, elves and other 'monsters' roam.

  "So what do we do now?" Edgar asks, his dark skin glistens with sweat as the sun beams down on us, and I can tell that he'd been doing a lot of hard work while I had been sleeping, which makes me feel instantly guilty, as if sleeping has become a crime overnight.