‘I woke up here a century and a half ago – on the floor right out there. I didn’t know where I was from or what had happened, only my name and what I am. I didn’t even know what the necklace meant at the time. All I remember was being held to my knees. I remember bright lights and chanting. I remember the necklace being wrapped around my hand.
‘Toby found me unconscious with it still there. He took it from me, not realising he was taking ownership with it. When I woke, I ran. But I only got so far. You know why. After a while, I worked it out too.
‘A few days later, I returned to him to collect it. Without hesitation, he gave it back to me. He offered me food, water, shelter. He was just a child back then. I didn’t look much older than in my late teens myself, though I knew I was. I had nowhere else to go, so I chose to stay for a while. He hid me from his parents. We became friends.
‘Once I told Toby what I was, he started researching. Not the kind of research you can find in libraries – we’re talking about records thousands of years old. He tracked them down. He spent over twenty years uncovering the truth. This was all before the regulations came into being – when people were still free to roam. That’s how we found out the necklace was a punishment. It’s also how I found out what class I was.’
‘Envoi?’
She nodded. ‘A messenger. It’s not exactly the glamorous end of the spectrum.’
‘So is that what those drawings are – a message?’
‘They’re things I see.’
‘Visions?’
She nodded. ‘My kind have no control over it. Sometimes we don’t even know who the intended recipient is. But the headaches don’t go until whatever is coming through has been passed on. I don’t have anyone to tell, so I draw it just to ease the pain.’
‘Is that how you got those scars?’
‘Yes.’
‘Does it scar you every time it happens?’
‘No. From what I understand, most of those scars came from the first time. But small lacerations can happen when it’s particularly intense.’
‘How often do you get these visions?’
‘Sometimes not for years.’
‘When was the last time?’
‘It started happening again a few days ago.’
‘Why?’
And that was the trickiest question of all.
He seemed to sense her reluctance and diverted – but no doubt only temporarily.
‘Does anyone else know about this?’ he asked.
She shook her head.
‘Not even Pummel?’
‘No one. Fortunately it doesn’t happen often enough for anyone to know.’
‘But this is where you come to record it?’
‘When I can. When I can get out here. And when I can’t, I record it on the paper in my room. Then I try to fill in the gaps down here, but it doesn’t always work. It gets foggy quickly, like a fading dream.’
‘Looks more like a nightmare to me.’
‘And something you shouldn’t have seen.’ She turned to face him. ‘You can’t tell anyone about this.’ She squeezed his hand. ‘Please, give me your word.’
There was a moment’s silence as he frowned again. ‘Jess, what is all this about?’
There was genuine concern in his eyes. She could have so easily offloaded to him, but what was routine and habit was hard to break. And he would know things – things no human should know; a secret that wasn’t hers to disclose.
‘Jessie,’ he said, the look in his eyes as much about wanting to release her from the burden as to uncover it for himself. ‘Talk to me.’
She tried to release her hand from his but he tightened his grip.
‘Jessie,’ he said again, his tone softer but with a more insistent edge. ‘I’m not just going to be able to forget what I saw. You can trust me – you know you can. If you want my word, I’m giving it to you. Is it a message?’
She stared deep into his dark eyes, eyes that were even darker in the candlelight. And as he kept a grip on her hand, she knew she did trust him. She needed to trust someone. ‘Yes.’
‘Of a pending disaster?’
‘Of The Latent Prophecy.’
‘The what?’
‘You’ve heard of the prophecy. Everyone’s heard of the prophecy.’
He frowned then raised his eyebrows slightly. ‘The vampire prophecy?’
‘If you’re coming from the vampire perspective, then yes. But it’s more generic than that.’
‘You’re telling me,’ he said, his outstretched arm pointing back towards the room. ‘That you have the vampire prophecy drawn all over that room? That that’s what’s going to happen?’
‘It’s called “latent” for a reason. This is not about pre-destination, Eden. Some prophecies are but this one belongs to the category of free will. Pre-destiny might set up the game, but the players dictate the outcome. And when those players change the path, the old one evaporates and I draw the new.’
He looked back into the room. Then into her eyes again. ‘And you keep going round in a circle?’
‘Every time something significant happens that could change the final outcome, yes.’
‘How long have you been doing this?’
‘As long as I can remember.’
‘Before the regulations?’
‘Yes.’
‘Before the Higher Order outed you all? Did you know that was going to happen?’
She nodded. ‘It was one of the significant changes. Toby found me in here one night, sketching it out. I told him that because the drawings had started here, I needed to keep recording them here. It must be some kind of epicentre – and I was the nearest to receive the messages.’
‘Like a conductor.’
She nodded.
‘Is that why you didn’t move out when the regulations came?’
‘Yes. I asked Toby to leave but he wouldn’t.’
‘Then the cons arrived.’
‘Yes.’
He stood from the sofa, gathered up a candle and stepped back into the room. He placed it on the floor before going back for two more to light the room as best he could.
‘So that blank space,’ he said, glancing over his shoulder at her as she leaned against the doorframe. ‘Is that where the new line begins? And it works clockwise?’
She nodded.
‘And this is the end?’ he asked, pointing to the image she had been working on just over an hour before. This darkness?’
‘I think there’s more to come.’ She stepped up alongside him and scanned the images for herself. ‘At one time, it was different. In a drawing I did many decades ago, the third species came into the open as was always intended, but a political leader challenged the powers that be. They fought for equal rights and won.’
He glanced across his shoulder at her, his frown resumed. ‘You make it sound like that wasn’t a bad thing.’
‘You say that as if equality is inevitably a bad thing.’
‘There’s no talk of equality in the prophecy. It talks of vampire supremacy.’
‘Because with humans in the equation there will always be a fight to come out on top. And the vampires won, just like the prophecy dictates.’
‘You still don’t make it sound like it was a bad thing.’
‘Because nothing good could ever come out of humans not remaining top of the hierarchy, right? I hate to break it to you, Eden, but just because your conditioning and your survival instinct tell you that’s the best outcome, it doesn’t mean you’re right. And the fact that anything that is a threat to your survival is automatically constituted as warranted for annihilation should yell that fact to you. But, unfortunately, there’s no species more arrogant than humans when it comes to having their belief system questioned – not least when an external source is the one to tell them the entire thing is faulty. It doesn’t even seem to occur to you that, even though you have the widest range of beliefs within any species, somehow you all remain impassioned that each of yo
u are still ultimately correct. Explain to me the logic in that?’
He frowned pensively. ‘You really don’t have much time for humans, do you?’
‘Look around me, Eden. Look where I live. Look at what I see every day. Are they not human – the ones you claim are the anomaly of your society because you don’t want to face your own potential? Yet they still have your so-called soul – the very basis for your kind dictating why you’re better than us.’
‘Then what is the difference between souls and shadows?’
‘There isn’t any. We’re opposing ends of a battery that ensures everything works, the yin and yang, both just part of the balance. There is no right or wrong or good or evil indicative to either species – just the reasoning behind the choices each of us makes.’
‘And that’s it?’
‘Your Global Council clutched at straws to justify creating segregation. They needed a species that was potentially more powerful than them locked away where they could control them. They had to have something to base the division on and, more importantly, to maintain it. With familiarity comes understanding, and they couldn’t allow that to happen – they couldn’t let people see that the differences were nothing more than physical.
‘There was no better way to secure that division than to convince humans we were a threat. Mention a physical threat and you have people’s undivided attention. Convince people that the threat is also intrinsically evil and you secure it without question. If you convince people that whatever atrocities they witness are ultimately for their own benefit, not only to save them in this life but also the next, you don’t just reinforce their fear enough to sustain it; you enable them to justify letting it happen without question.
‘Because no species is more defiant against their own mortality than humans, Eden, nor has a deeper inherent fear of what lies beyond. Whether humans choose to acknowledge it or not, it is inbuilt in them to believe there is something beyond what they see. So they cling to the oldest cliché there is: better to be safe than sorry. And these boundaries help them feel safe.’
‘And do you know what that is? What lies beyond?’
‘No more than you do.’
‘So you don’t know if you’re right either.’
‘I know what I see happening here in the south is wrong. I know that if the third species weren’t here managing it, this place would be worse for it – for us and for the humans forced to reside here.’
‘And in places like Summerton, where there is none of this? Where purely humans reign?’
‘And the equivalent with the third species wouldn’t be the same? That’s what I’m trying to tell you: it’s not down to what species are in charge, but who the species leader is – what their motivations are, their beliefs.’
He looked back at the last image she had drawn, the darkness having thickened, the swirling mass of ethereal images having increased in density, piles of what could be interpreted as bodies dominating the desolate landscape.
‘This doesn’t look like equality to me,’ he remarked.
‘I told you, something changed. Something went wrong – with someone’s choice somewhere.’
He stared back at her. ‘This could be down to one person’s decision?’
‘How many do you think it takes?’
‘Whose decision?’
‘I don’t know. But I do know, as you must do too, that when the Global Council established themselves, they ensured they introduced a law that dictated no third species could make political decisions that could affect the lives of humans – thus preventing this political leader from even attempting equality.’
‘Are you telling me they might have known about this outcome?’
‘Maybe. If they did, they made a mistake. The prophecy was definitely about a great leader – a good, powerful and principled leader who would find a way of living in a mutually beneficial way.’
‘Offering healing in exchange for blood. Which they have.’
‘Except humans upped the ante. They want it permanent. They don’t just want to cure their weaknesses; they want to cure what they are.’
‘And only then will vampires be proven not to be the enemy the prophecy dictates. And if they don’t…’
‘So the vampires’ Higher Order, who outed the third species in the first place, told the Global Council about an adhesive.’
‘Does it exist?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know.’
He turned to face her more fully. ‘Then why out themselves before finding it, Jess? Why risk putting their own kind through this?’ He frowned. ‘Are they just biding their time?’
‘It’s the one consistent thing throughout every version of the prophecy – the divisions needed to be put in place. Oppression needed to exist or the leader has no reason to rise.’
‘The Higher Order outed themselves to instigate the prophecy? That rumour is true?’
‘Only now they’re getting impatient waiting for the leader to rise – just as the Global Council are getting impatient waiting for the cure that was promised to them decades ago. I think tensions are escalating. The Higher Order need that adhesive or they need the leader – and they need one or the other soon.’
‘Do you know what the adhesive is?’
‘No.’
‘But your blood works the same way. Is there an adhesive for yours? Is it possible that your blood and the blood of the Higher Order vampires combined is what’s needed?’
‘Mixing any third species blood makes it toxic. Just as only certain third-species bloods can be used effectively with humans without side effects.’
‘Which is why they don’t use lycan blood.’
She nodded. ‘Higher Order vampire blood and angel blood are the only ones I know of that work safely – even if it is temporary.’
She was on the cusp of telling him. Right on the cusp. She’d parted her lips, ready to share the whole truth; hesitating as his dark eyes remained locked pensively on the images.
‘Do you know when this leader will rise?’ he asked.
‘I think that’s why the visions have started again. I think they already have.’
His eyes snapped back to hers. ‘Do you know who it is? Have you seen them?’
‘I never see faces clearly. Like I said, when the visions are over, it’s like waking from a dream – the information is there somewhere but I can’t access it anymore. All I know is that the prophecy dictates they’re of the Higher Order – vampire royalty. And that’s where I’m confused. According to what I’ve seen,’ she indicated towards the two entwined, domed figures, ‘the leader is destined to rise right here in Blackthorn.’
Eden stepped up to the faceless figures, before resting his finger on them as he turned to face her. ‘One of these is the vampire leader?’
‘I think so.’
‘Then who is the other one?’
‘I think it’s the serryn.’
‘The serryn?’
‘Humans may have changed the goalposts, but destiny always has a back-up plan. In order to succeed, the leader has to undergo a transformation to become the Tryan – a completely unique vampire. For the transformation, they need a serryn: the rarest and most deadly of witches, their blood poisonous to any vampire except the chosen one. They have to drink the witch to death, do battle with her at the Brink – similar to what is understood as purgatory – and, if the chosen one survives, they can steal her soul and amalgamate it with their shadow.’
‘Creating a loophole,’ he said. ‘Those with shadows cannot rule over humans…’
‘But if a vampire was to have a soul as well as a shadow, they would have to be granted a place on the council. It would be the biggest political shift since the regulations were first put into place.’
‘But this,’ he said, pointing to the darker end of the wall, ‘this is not a peaceful political protest. This is devastation. They’re not looking like a good and principled leader to me.’
‘That’s the thing –
I don’t think it’s them who instigates the devastation. There’s an opposition, an equally powerful opposition.’ She stepped up to the star. ‘Symbolised here as the Dog Star. I think that, whoever this is, they’re the one who evokes this war. I think it’s them who fuels a darkness in the vampire leader. It’s because of them that there’s a fight for ultimate dominance. A battle that leads to the demise of all the species, including humans.’
‘But you can’t see who this Dog Star represents either?’
She hesitated as she held his gaze.
‘Jess?’ he asked. ‘Do you know who this is?’
‘Not for sure.’
Or she hadn't, not until her discovery in the cellars had confirmed it.
‘But?’
‘As with all prophecies, there’s always an element of interpretation. But what I do know, as you may too, is that the Dog Star is the ancient symbol of the lycans.’
His eyes widened. ‘Lycans? You think a lycan is the opposition? But that would create a civil war.’
‘I know – a civil war that would spread from locale to locale. Forces would be compelled to come in to protect the humans, not least because there would be inevitable spillage into Lowtown. And if it did ever manage to spill across all the borders…’
‘Which is what this prophecy dictates. But the lycans are peaceful – not least here in Blackthorn. Under Jask’s rule, they always have been. They don’t fuck with anyone who doesn’t fuck with them – in order to prevent this very thing from happening. This would be putting his pack at risk all to fight some leader who is ultimately out to protect their corner. That doesn’t make any sense.’
‘I’m not saying they are the ones to go up against the vampire leader; just that they could be the ones who instigate a series of events that leads to this.’
‘But it would have to be some major provocation for the lycans to even consider it.’
‘The lycans may have no reason to instigate a war with vampires, but that doesn’t stop them kick-starting a war with humans – with the cons in this district.’
His eyes narrowed, his frown deepening.
‘He has lycans here, Eden,’ Jessie said. ‘Pummel has lycans right beneath his house. Kids. He’s taken Jask’s youth from the compound.’
Blood Deep (Blackthorn Book 4) Page 33