by F. E. Heaton
"You take that side,” she said to Venturi.
He nodded.
She watched him for a few seconds and then started to search her side of the room. She had barely been looking for a few minutes before Venturi called her over.
He pointed at a panel on the wall behind a table, which he moved aside as she approached.
He pulled the panel open and she smiled at the sight that greeted her. Kneeling, she carefully removed each rolled up piece of parchment that had been stored inside the metal box in the wall, checking it to see if it was the one they were looking for. Each one that she discounted, she handed to Venturi to put on the table. The prophecy had to be near the top but other than remembering that it was written using a series of lines, she didn't have a clue what it looked like.
"The journal.” Venturi pointed at a slim book that was sitting on a small shelf with some others.
She took it out and opened it. Inside was a piece of paper. Unfolding it, she stared at the cuneiform script and smiled, silently thanking Mathias for being so clever as to make a copy of the scroll.
She carefully placed each of the scrolls they'd removed back into the box and sealed it away again. Moving the table back in front of it, she stared at it for a moment and sighed. This whole house felt so empty without its owner but in a way he was in everything she looked at. His personality was stamped so indelibly on everything that although he was gone, it was impossible to forget him. She wrapped her fingers tightly around the book and walked back up the stairs.
Closing the door when she reached the hallway, she ran her fingers over it to check it was sealed again and followed Venturi into the lounge. She didn't know what to say to him when he looked at her so she dropped her gaze to rest on the book.
"My head is still ... the drug...” he stumbled on the words and she looked at him. “Will you be all right here alone?"
She nodded and smiled, thanking him for his concern. “Get some rest. When Valentine returns, I'll go to bed. Until then, I think I'd like to be alone with my thoughts."
He nodded and walked through the door. She listened to him ascending the stairs and stared at the book again. Walking through the house, she let her feet lead her to the courtyard she'd sat in before when she had wanted to be alone. There was so much to think about and still so much to do.
They needed to retrieve the second part of the scroll from the museum.
Sitting down on the bench in the courtyard, she glanced up at the stars twinkling overhead and then looked at the book.
First, she needed to see what Mathias and Venturi had discovered about the scroll.
Opening the book, she started to read.
Chapter 17
Valentine drew his jacket up and jammed his hands into his pockets. He sighed and stared up at the stars where they were barely visible through the streetlights. He didn't know how long he'd been walking, or where he was going. He'd just had to get out of the house and away from everything for a while.
Leaving Prophecy alone with Venturi was probably a bad idea, but it would be easy enough to kill Venturi when he got back if he'd made the slightest move on her.
His stomach growled, reminding him that he needed to hunt and feed. Although Prophecy had healed his body, he still needed to make up for the loss of blood and the way Kalinor had staved him during his captivity. He closed his eyes and flinched at the recollection. Images of his torture flickered in front of his eyes and he stopped dead, his body tensing and trembling while he attempted to deal with the things he was seeing. He clenched his fists, ignoring the pain as his claws dug into the soft flesh of his palms.
Heaving a sigh, he uncurled his fists and stared at the palms of his hands. What was he doing? He'd been trained to deal with situations like that so why had it affected him so badly? Was it because he'd been beginning to believe that Prophecy wouldn't come for him? He'd almost lost hope. Arkalus had poisoned his mind with images of Prophecy leaving him behind and letting him die, while Kalinor had tortured him to the brink of death.
He looked at his surroundings, noting that he didn't recognise where he was and then turned around. If he was going to successfully hunt, he needed to get somewhere with more people. All of the streets around him were empty.
Walking back towards the centre of town, he licked the puncture marks in his palms, sealing them shut and savouring the taste of his own blood. When he was done, he looked up at the stars again, hoping to find the sense of peace he was searching for there. Inside him was a growing maelstrom of pain and anger. He was losing his battle to control it and was beginning to feel as though the only solution was to find something to kill, and kill it brutally.
He frowned when a noise came from the street ahead of him. Focusing his senses, he searched out the owner of the muttering voice and found them sitting in a dark doorway of a closed shop. The old man extended a hand to him, mumbling something about some money for food. Valentine glanced at the homeless man's other hand, noticing the bottle of alcohol he was clutching to his chest.
Something to dull the pain.
He stopped in front of the man and looked at him for a few seconds, the frown remaining etched on his features. He narrowed his eyes, waiting for the man to look into them and then reached out and snapped his neck with one hand. When the man began to slump onto his side, he took the bottle and looked at it, and then at its former owner.
It was probably a good thing he'd just done. What kind of life could this man have had? Forced to beg in a corner for food while drinking his life away. He looked down at his hand and sneered at the idea he'd touched something so unclean. Pouring some of the alcohol over his hand, he wiped it down his trousers to clean it, and then wiped the neck of the bottle. He couldn't get any diseases from the homeless man, but he had his standards. The rules of the society he'd been raised in were still in his blood even after all these years. He would never mix with commoners.
Holding the bottle at arms length, he looked at the label and frowned. Whisky. It was only two thirds full. Such a small quantity wouldn't get him drunk, but it would ease the pain a little and hopefully unlock the restraints that held his emotions inside. He could feel them eating away at him and he needed to get them out. He needed to stop for a moment and let the reality of these past few days sink in. Only then would he be able to deal with them all and move on.
Mathias.
He closed his eyes and drank every last drop of the whisky in one go.
Hanging his head, he closed his eyes and waited for it to get into his system. His fingers shook where they held the bottle, his brows slowly contracting into a frown and his bottom lip trembling when he thought about his friend. Turning sharply, he roared and threw the bottle at the wall across the street. It smashed into tiny pieces under the force of the impact and the sound of it echoed along the street.
His chest heaved, his breathing becoming heavy while he stared at the glittering fragments on the floor. He swallowed, feeling the emotions welling up inside of him, forcing their way out. Anger was replaced by emptiness while he stared unseeingly at the glass, all his thoughts swimming about in his head and making no sense.
Dropping to his knees, he slumped forwards, his fingers grazing the floor and his eyes filling with tears.
Why?
Why take him?
Had Kalinor even come to look for him? Had he come straight here to kill Mathias, knowing what the death of his friend would do to him? This was a twisted kind of torture, a psychological pain that he hadn't been prepared for or trained to defend himself against.
His heart told him that this had been intentional. Kalinor was trying to break him and he had started by physically torturing him before moving on to mental torture. Who was next? Mia and Dmitri?
Prophecy?
He'd die before he let that happen. He'd never let Kalinor hurt her or any other of his friends. He'd send word to Mia and Dmitri as soon as possible.
He blinked away the tears, not letting them fall. He'd never l
et them fall. If he did, then Kalinor had won. His lord knew that torturing him wouldn't break him, but it had weakened him enough for the death of Mathias to hit him as hard as it possibly could.
He had to be strong, but it was so hard.
His head swam with the alcohol and he smiled when it began to take effect, numbing him a little. Getting to his feet, he looked at the body of the homeless man and then continued on his path towards the centre of the city. He couldn't stop thinking about everything and how it was all his fault. He should have stopped Prophecy from going to Romania. He should have stood firm, but he had wanted things to remain calm between them and undermining her authority would only have split them apart again. He should have realised earlier that the lord of Tenebrae was not the enemy. He should have realised a lot of things, but none of it mattered now. Having lived as long as he had, he knew that dwelling on the past brought you nothing but constant hurt. There was no sweet release of death at the end of a long struggle. To live an eternity, you had to first learn to let go of things that as a human you would have dwelt upon, otherwise you went crazy.
He took a deep breath and smiled at the delicate scent of blood that was tainting the air.
The first lesson as a vampire was letting go of your inhibitions. There was nothing wrong with killing. Believing there was would only lead to starvation.
He'd learnt that lesson quickly. He'd killed with relish and to this day, he still enjoyed the feeling of freedom and strength it inspired in him.
His eyes tracked a couple as they walked across the end of the road in front of him. Following them, he turned down the street they were walking along.
He grinned.
Scanning the masses that were filling the street in front of him, he searched out the couple. There were people everywhere, some walking towards him and others away, some of them milling around and talking to their friends. They reeked of alcohol, of sweat and blood. He could feel their heartbeats calling to him, reverberating through him. He snarled at a girl when she passed him by and grinned to himself when she broke into a run.
Lambs to the slaughter.
He breathed deeply, feeling empowered by the way he could so easily slip through the crowd without them even knowing what was walking amongst them. His attention was caught by a group of girls as they laughed with each other. They stopped when they noticed him, their smiles dropping off their faces and their looks turning seductive. He could have every single one of them. They wouldn't know what they were dealing with until it was too late.
Women were easy.
They honestly believed that he had an interest in them. He'd never associate himself with a filthy human. They were walking blood banks. They were his next meal. The compassion that some of his species showed towards humans sickened him.
He frowned when his thoughts drifted back to Mathias.
Mathias had feelings for his housemaid. Someone had to tell her that he was gone.
Valentine growled when someone walked into him and looked up to see a man standing in front of him. The man laughed, nudging his friends with his arm so they joined in. He ignored their comments about his clothing and stared at them, assessing their build and the situation. There were four of them. The street was crowded, but with big enough gaps that he could see a clear path he could use if he chose to run.
He remembered that the law didn't apply to him any more. He'd already broken enough of them that the Law Keepers were coming for him regardless. He was tired of pandering to humans and letting them get away with mocking him whenever they saw fit. It was about time they learnt whose world they walked in and how pathetic they were. This world didn't belong to humans. It belonged to the vampires, to the children of Hell.
Picking his nails, he waited with growing impatience for the man to stop laughing.
When he didn't, Valentine snapped his head up and stared straight into his eyes.
"Got a problem, mate?” the man said.
Valentine shook his head. “Not a problem, more of a mild irritation, like a bug that needs to be squashed."
The man frowned when his friends laughed at him. “You calling me a bug?"
He didn't give the man a chance to make a move. Lurching forwards, Valentine caught him around the neck, raising him off the ground. He grinned when the man choked and his friends tried to tug him free.
"One that needs to be squashed,” Valentine said and then flung the man hard towards the shop fronts across the road from him, throwing him straight through the glass.
Valentine looked at the three men standing in front of him. They stared at him and he thought they were going to be stupid enough to say something or fight. They hesitated a little longer and then ran to check on their friend. Valentine sighed, flexed his fingers and watched the people gathering around the broken window and the man.
Turning, he glanced at the girls to see they weren't looking so seductive any more. They look horrified. He grinned, revealing the sharp points of his incisors and growled at them. When they screamed and ran, he laughed. Humans were such easy targets.
He scanned the crowds and saw that the couple he was tracking had reached the top of the road. Swiftly walking after them, he slowed his pace when he was within a few metres and followed them down another road. The moment they were somewhere a little less public, he'd put his plan into action.
They'd be dead before they could blink.
He was in no mood for toying with his food.
The man held a black iron gate open for the girl. Valentine watched them walk into the park on the other side.
He smiled. This was just too perfect. The park was in complete darkness. Maybe he would toy with them for a while after all. All this fighting and killing was starting to make him feel a little better, and was probably going to stop him from killing Venturi when he got back to the house.
Slipping into the park, he moved off the path and onto the grass to cover the sound of his footsteps. He stilled his breathing as his face morphed into his demonic visage. His senses reached out, pinpointing and locking onto the couple while they walked. He pricked his ears, listening to them giggling with each other and their muttered lovers’ comments. His smile became a grin.
Stalking them, he waited for the perfect moment to attack. He mounted the steps that went up into the main area of the park, his eyes adjusting to the darkness and allowing him to see where the couple were. His senses alone could outline them for him, but it was more fun not to rely on them fully. He preferred it when there was a chance they could escape. It made the hunt more interesting.
He stopped at the same time they did, watching them while they laughed and kissed. He frowned and his thoughts wandered to Prophecy. It was probably the alcohol helping him shed his inhibitions, but he couldn't get his mind off kissing her while he watched the couple in front of him. The taste of her lips and the way her body moulded against his whenever they kissed filled him with a desire the likes of which he hadn't felt since he was newly turned and still naïve. He'd never thought he could find someone like her, even less that he would find her in the house of his family's enemy. But he had found her, and his love for her was deeper than he'd ever felt before, even in his human life. He hadn't even felt like this about Lucya.
When he came out of his thoughts, he realised that the couple had started moving again. He pushed his thoughts of Prophecy away and focused on the anger and frustration inside of him. He wanted to get it out into the open and get over it, and the easiest way for him to do that was to take it out on someone.
He had to take it out on them.
They were going to die anyway. Prophecy needed blood and the couple would be providing it.
He might as well expunge these feelings inside of him at the same time.
When he caught up with them where they were walking down the wide path, he stepped out onto the gravel and let it crunch under his feet.
The couple went rigid but kept walking. He listened to their heartbeats accelerate and could sens
e the adrenaline as it entered their veins, sweetening the scent of their blood.
He stepped off the gravel and onto the grass the other side. Slipping through the shadows, he kept his senses trained on them while he moved to intercept them. They were panicking. He could feel it in his blood. He could smell the waves of fear coming off them. Any moment now, they would run.
Only he'd be waiting for them.
The second they moved, he stepped out in front of them and caught the man around the neck. He grinned in the darkness, bringing the man's face close to his so he would be able to see what was about to kill him. He licked his incisors and threw the man into a nearby tree trunk, but he didn't give him a chance to slump to the floor. Moving as swift as air, he grabbed hold of the man's shirt and silenced his panicked cry by ripping his claws across the man's neck. A garbled noise was all that sounded from the man's throat and Valentine tossed the body to one side.
He turned sharply, honing his senses on the woman. She had stopped. He shook his head and walked towards her.
"Greg?” she said in a shaky voice.
He smiled.
He listened to her ragged breathing and her heart as it pounded hard in her chest. When he was standing barely a few inches from her, he smiled and took a deep breath. She squeaked and then reached out with trembling hands towards him.
"Greg?” she said again.
He leaned towards her, bringing his mouth close to her ear. “Greg's dead."
She went to scream but he caught hold of her mouth. He laughed when she bit down on his hand and returned the favour by digging his claws into her cheeks. She whimpered and stopped biting him. He could feel her hot breath against his hand, stinging the cuts in his palm.
"Shh,” he whispered. “You would not want me to kill you too, would you?"
She tried to shake her head. He suppressed his desire to laugh again. She really believed that there was a chance he was going to let her go. That would be a miracle, and everyone knew what a fallacy they were.