by Ian Haywood
Part of him wanted to join his men in the search, but another part of him told him to stay exactly where he was right now just in case whoever had killed the two guards returned to claim more victims – at least he would be close at hand, ready to protect Alana if that did happen.
Without any warning, Lucius heard Alana’s voice from across the room.
“Naomi is not too far from us, Lucius and I can tell you right now that she is far more powerful than you and I could ever have imagined - we really must act fast to locate her before she starts using the powers that she possesses against us! You told me that she was weak when you brought her from the mortal world and I felt nothing special within her, but since that moment when I went to attack her, I can almost sense everything that she does. I do not care whether you believe me or not, but if I could use that to my advantage to locate her, then I am willing to take that chance.”
Lucius quickly walked towards Alana until he was standing just inches from her.
“Then let me go with you!” Lucius begged. “She could hurt you again!”
“The strangest thing is Lucius, she never meant to hurt me in the first place – all that I have ever sensed from her is fear of you and me and it still continues now even after she has left this place.”
“You say that you sense what Naomi does – how exactly is that possible?” Lucius asked.
“Like I said before, I do not care whether you believe me or not!” came Alana’s answer.
Whereas Alana had suddenly become defensive thinking that Lucius didn’t believe a word that she said, little did she know that Lucius understood a lot more than she had first thought.
Lucius spoke to Alana in a sympathetic tone and what he said reassured her.
“I only spent a little time with Naomi back in the mortal world and believe me, for a mortal she came out with quite a lot of weird information regarding what I had gone through before meeting you Alana. She knew about the attack on my village and she even knew that it was Zephal who had taken me in when I was on the verge of death! So when you tell me that you can somehow sense whatever she does, it comes as no surprise to me at all. When I asked her how she knew all of this information about me even though we had never met before, she told me that it had all come to her through some kind of a vision now and again.”
Alana immediately locked eyes with Lucius after suddenly realizing that he knew exactly what was happening to her.
“You know?”
Lucius nodded his head.
“You obviously acquired that power when you came into contact with Naomi earlier – that must have been what the loud crack and flash of light was!”
“I never want to go through that again, I can tell you!” Alana replied, “I will never forget the feeling I had when I lay on the floor after – I felt as if I was falling through the air and as I plunged lower and lower, more and more images were flashing inside my head and they continued doing so until it became too much for me to digest and the next thing that I knew was opening my eyes and seeing you peering down at me.”
Lucius remembered that moment, but didn’t want to tell Alana that she had some kind of fit and at one point, Lucius thought that she may not pull through.
Alana had obviously gone through enough – so Lucius remained silent while Alana continued speaking.
“A lot of the images flew past without me even seeing them properly, but there were quite a lot that I remembered vividly. The strange thing was a lot of them had you in them!”
“Me?” Lucius asked,
“Yes!” Alana answered, “You never did tell me what exactly did happen while you were in the mortal world, Lucius.”
“We have had a lot more pressing matters to attend to since my return. It seems trivial to speak about it as the most important thing is I brought Naomi to you alive.” Lucius replied.
“Her true name is not Naomi!” Alana responded, “It’s just a name that they chose for her when they first hid her in the mortal world. We only discovered the prophecy within the Great Book very recently whilst the Disciples of Draig knew of her existence long before we did and they continued to keep a close eye on her without being discovered. It was extremely lucky that my negotiations with Mortus were fruitful enough for him to allow me to make contact with the Disciples in order to reveal to us where Gereziac’s precious princess was hiding. It was as much a surprise to me as it was to you to discover that the Disciples of Draig still existed as we had been led to believe that they had been wiped out centuries ago, but let me tell you Lucius, they are everywhere amongst the mortals and some of them are incredibly powerful indeed. Some even hold positions of such high authority that vital evidence could be easily eliminated if someone had committed a murder, Lucius!”
Lucius wondered what Alana was getting at and soon all would be revealed as she continued speaking.
“It seems that you certainly left a trail of destruction in the mortal world, Lucius. You never told me that Gereziac’s daughter was nearly killed one night in an alleyway – not to mention the events at a hospital and the no end of bodies that were left behind as they got caught up in the fights you had with Zephal! We no longer have a Realm Guardian who can grant us access back through the portal into the mortal world.”
Lucius was visibly shocked by how much Alana knew of what had happened in the mortal world and he knew that she truly did possess the same power that Naomi had.
“But you are correct in saying that your mission was a success and that is all that matters and to be fair, you certainly did manage to turn on your charm when it came to getting Gereziac’s daughter on your side.” Alana continued, “I could feel the shock and betrayal that she went through when she discovered that you had used her in order to bring her to me. Not to mention the lies that you told her in order for her to believe that you were her only hope of survival when it looked like nobody else could save her were ingenious – so much so, that she still believes that Zephal is the evil one and that he would like nothing more than to see her dead.”
“But Zephal is evil!” Lucius replied.
The look on Alana’s face became more serious.
“It seems the girl fell in love with you completely!”
“I had no idea that she was going to fall for me that much, Alana! She’s just a silly little girl whose emotions were all over the place and yes, I did take advantage that she felt this way – but only in order to bring her back to you!” Lucius answered defensively.
“Even down to the point where she shed her clothes for you?”
Lucius remained silent at Alana’s last question, giving Alana another chance to bombard him with more questions.
“Is that what you really think of all women, Lucius? Do you secretly see me as something you can use and abuse to get what you want? I don’t know whether the loyalty you show to me is true. If she hadn’t have stopped you from making love to her, would you have gone all the way and impregnated her? If that had happened, would you be fighting against me right now if you had found out that she was carrying your child?”
“Then the child would die along with her!” Lucius answered chillingly.
Alana limped slowly towards Lucius and promptly whispered into his left ear.
“Then the girl is right to fear you! And I am glad that the visions came!”
It was meant to be a verbal swipe at him, but instead Alana had inadvertently reminded him of what he had done to fool Naomi back in the mortal world which suddenly gave him a moment of inspiration.
“Alana,” Lucius said to Alana as they stood face to face, “didn’t you just mention that all you can sense is fear from Naomi right now?”
Alana nodded her head and Lucius continued.
“You just said that she is right to fear me and if it’s not me or you who is with her right now, who is the only person left that she fears the most?”
Alana immediately realized who Lucius was taking about and a name came from her mouth.
“Zephal! But he is dead!”
“I know Zephal more than anyone in this army, including you Alana and the moment his body disappeared from the beach I knew that he came back to life. But he needed blood to do so and somehow he’s managed to obtain it and revived himself. I can tell you for certain that he is the one to blame for all this carnage and he won’t stop at this.” Lucius replied.
“Then Lucius, I want you to head to the barracks immediately and get some men together – there is no time to lose. I will follow on and meet you there shortly and we will begin to search for our two elusive guests!”
CHAPTER SEVEN
I had no idea where I was right now, but the stench that surrounded me was so disgusting that I thought I was going to be sick a number of times.
The last thing that I remember was being tied to a chair by two guards and now I have suddenly woken up to find myself somewhere completely different laying on a cold damp floor.
There is no light whatsoever around me and I can’t even make out what my surroundings look like and even more scarily, I can’t work out if I’m actually in here alone or not.
My body is a little sore from the after-effects of what happened earlier when Alana suddenly went for me, but I must admit that I did take pleasure in seeing how much it affected her too.
I recall seeing her being helped out of the room by Lucius and it must have been seconds after they left that I must have passed out.
The strange thing is there is nothing restricting my movement – my hands and feet are not tied to anything and I am obviously free to move around if I wish, but something inside me is warning me that if I did, would someone or something attack me without warning?
I went to sit up and as soon as I moved, I could suddenly hear movement from the other side of the room.
I stopped and listened closely to try and work out what had caused it, but the only thing I heard was silence.
One of the biggest phobias that has stayed with me throughout my life was that of rats and I didn’t fancy coming across one in a pitch black room.
Surely if it was some kind of a rodent, then it wouldn’t suddenly stop scurrying that quickly.
I pressed my left hand onto the floor to lift me up a little more and I ended up putting it into a shallow puddle and I instantly pulled it out again in disgust.
I don’t know what the liquid was that I had put my hand in, but one thing was for sure – it stunk beyond belief.
I wiped it on my top and hoped that it wasn’t some kind of animal’s urine or even worse!
But not knowing what I had just put my hand in was nowhere near as frightening as suddenly hearing a male voice coming from across the room.
And even worse, it was a voice that I had heard before and it was one that I thought I would never hear again.
I froze to the spot as it dawned on me who the owner was and I closed my eyes for a second, hoping that it was just my imagination playing tricks on me.
But I soon realized that I wasn’t that lucky as he spoke out again.
“You are incredibly lucky to still be alive, Naomi. Many people who have fallen into the grasps of Alana and her army never get to survive as long as you have!”
Surely this can’t be the voice of Zephal.
The last time I saw him, he had been fighting Lucius on the clifftop and lost.
I saw his body myself!
But hadn’t Lucius come bursting in saying that Zephal’s body had disappeared, sparking off blind panic earlier.
Surely my nightmare couldn’t get any worse?
Every single hair on my body stood on end as I heard footsteps coming closer and closer as every second passed and the man who hid in the corner slowly began to reveal his identity to me.
And my hunch was indeed right as he stood close enough for me to work out some of his facial features as my eyes grew a little more accustomed to the darkness.
Every muscle in my body tensed as I realized I was now alone with Zephal and if I could find where the exit was right now, I would be heading straight for it without a second’s hesitation.
He could obviously sense my fear and he gave out a sinister laugh before speaking again.
“It seems that you have been a very foolish little girl indeed! I thought you would have had a lot more sense than to fall for such a blatant trap by choosing Lucius over me. You have learnt the hard way and do not expect any kind of sympathy from me for doing so.”
“How are you still alive?” I managed to ask.
“You have truly been protected in the mortal world, Naomi and you will soon discover for yourself that things are a lot different here in my world compared to the pathetic one you have just come from.”
“What do you mean?”
Zephal knelt down in front of me and as he did, I moved back a little to make the gap between us just that little bit more in case he made a sudden move to grab me – but all he did was answer my question.
“There’s a lot that you need to learn if you want to survive in this world and one of them is to know who your enemies truly are. Nearly every person you will come across is born with some kind of evil within them and no matter how nice they can appear to be towards you, they could easily turn against you within a blink of an eye. If you think Alana and Lucius are the worst characters you are going to encounter, then you are so wrong. The best survival technique that I can give you is to learn to kill or be killed – but even when someone dies, that’s not necessarily the last that you will see of them. Immortality is a wonderful thing to possess and even though you saw what you thought was my dead body, it was just waiting to be awoken once again. And that’s what you did for me.”
Zephal’s answer confused me.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“In order for someone like to me to continue existing,” Zephal answered, “then I must feed off the blood of other living creatures. Ironically, it is the mortals who came up with our name - vampires. You even saw it for yourself when Lucius fed on the blood of that man who attacked you in the alleyway outside your house?”
“You were there?”
I could work out that Zephal was nodding his head.
“The arrival of the police was not the only reason why Lucius fled the scene!”
“But where do I fit into why you’re alive right now?” I asked impatiently.
“Because you woke me up with your blood!” Zephal answered, “You brought me back to life, Alana.”
And then it dawned on me.
It must have been when Lucius struck me incredibly hard on the beach, causing me to fall onto Zephal’s body and I remembered that my lip had split and some of my blood had dripped onto his face.
I had inadvertently brought my nightmare back to life.
CHAPTER EIGHT
I have heard someone say that you make your own luck in life and right now I am starting to think that luck has given up on me completely.
No matter where I turn, some kind of nightmare is waiting to rear its ugly head causing death and destruction in its wake and also leaving me behind to face the consequences alone.
My life cannot get any stranger right now – everything that I am encountering as each day passes is getting more and more unusual, even to the point of where I am questioning my own sanity.
My once normal day to day life has been turned upside down and everyone I seem to meet are not as I first thought – and if that wasn’t strange enough, everyone seems to think that I am the daughter of someone by the name of Gereziac and I am presently sitting in a dark room with someone who I inadvertently had brought back to life.
Everywhere I have gone has revealed a new enemy and I could feel myself beginning to weaken both physically and mentally through it all.
And one of the biggest causes was only a couple of feet away from me right now and I shivered as I heard Zephal’s voice once more.
“I can’t help but notice that you seem quite scared of me, Naomi. Is there any reason why you feel this way?”
“You’re
just as bad as Lucius!” I answered loudly, “My life was normal until you two came into it and look exactly at what you have caused! I was happy when I saw your dead body on the beach and I thought that all this shit was over – but then I discover that Lucius was just as evil as you! I wish that you and Lucius had both died on that beach so I could have got back to living my life the best I could after the wreckage that you had both caused!”
“Why, the meek little lamb has finally started fighting back!” Zephal replied. “I never doubted your inner strength for a moment, especially as I have the scars of having a garden fork stuck into me to remind me!”
“I should have killed you off that day!” I answered.
Immediately after I had said that, Zephal moved forward until we were inches from each other and spoke.
“Then you would have had nobody to save you right now.”
“Save me?” I snapped. “I’ve nearly died a number of times because of you! You chased me through the streets and killed the Coroner in the police station car park when he stopped you from grabbing me! And the time when I was in hospital – you got into the room and God knows what would have happened if Lucius hadn’t got there and stopped you from doing whatever it was you were going to do to me. You put me through the worst Hell that you could ever imagine and everywhere I turned, you were there and death soon followed! You even killed a vicar!”