Mathias paused, grabbed a croissant, and walked out of Tepes’ rooms.
* * * * *
Nosferatu knocked on his Mother’s door. After a few moments, the door swung open gently.
“My darling, come in.”
“You are planning something. I can tell.”
Lilith was seated in her plush velvet chair. She was wearing a grey silk suit that was cut low, just exposing the inner edges of her breasts. Her skirt was knee length. The whole effect was both stunning and sophisticated, and yet somehow inappropriate. Her dark hair was swept up in a French braid. Her green eyes narrowed. “Oh sit. You always over exaggerate.”
Nosferatu stiffened his spine. “We know that isn’t true, Mother. Now what are you planning?”
She closed her eyes and slowly opened them. “I’m worried, Nossy.”
“About what, Mother?”
She sighed. “That boy.”
“You leave that boy alone, Mother. He’s been through enough. He doesn’t need all of this. Vlad is trying to get him to remember. You’re trying to figure out his motives when he’s a fifteen-year-old kid, and I’m trying to give the kid a normal life, or at least as normal as we can make it. Can you please leave him alone?”
“Oh Nossy, don’t get so upset.”
Nossy glared. “Mother, I think I have every right to be upset. He is not the Mathias you knew. He isn’t the Mathias any of us knew. He is himself.”
“Oh Nossy, if only it were that simple.”
* * * * *
Mathias wandered through the hallways. It was interesting to look at how far they went, and it was nice to be somewhere by himself where he wasn’t locked away. The last time he’d been able to do wander around like this was before he’d arrived at the school. He’d been here for months. It felt good to have a little freedom.
Suddenly, he came to a cross-chamber that intersected several hallways. Nosferatu stormed out of one of them, passed Mathias by without saying a word and stormed off into the hallway Mathias had just come out of.
Unable to hedge his curiosity, Mathias wandered down the hallway Nosferatu had just vacated. It wasn’t long before he smelled roses and musk.
“I see you there,” she said.
Mathias stopped. He felt something rub against his arm.
“You have come to me, I want to know why?”
“I...I was exploring, and I saw Nosferatu come from here.”
She let out a long slow hiss. “My son is angry with me.”
Mathias breathed deeply. Her perfume was odd, but then everything about her was odd. He felt her power and the danger it possessed. He was doomed.
“Do you know who I am?” Her voice echoed oddly off the stone walls.
“Lilith.”
“Yessssss.” Her voice seemed to undulate over his body. Mathias knew she was a vampire, but she could have been a demon. Maybe that’s why the history books said she was both.
He felt her rub her hands along his back. He was rooted to the spot. “What do you want with me?”
She giggled. “I could ask the same of you, little boy.”
“I don’t want anything from you. Can I go now?” Mathias asked.
“Are you sure Mathias? Are you sure that you don’t want to revisit my talents? Revisit the cell?”
Mathias wished he knew how to blink himself away. It was his only escape, but he didn’t know how. Besides, she held him with her power. There was nothing he could do.
Suddenly, she scratched her claw across his face. Mathias could feel the blood well to the surface. She came around to the front of him and showed him the blood on her claw and licked it. “Ahh, it is good to taste you again. Yes, my darling. You can go.”
He felt her power release him. He turned and ran. Her laughter followed him until he got to the cross-chamber. He didn’t stop running until he reached the site of his own grave.
It was cold, so very cold. The snow swept around the grounds. It was so deep that most of the twigs were buried. Mathias wandered over to where his last body lay. His grave was covered in drifted snow, and the bush was covered in ice. He could clearly see the bones in the mass of twigs that made up his grave. He was the Mathias. He knew that now. Her smell was unmistakable. His dreams, her mention of the cell, it was all there. He wasn’t the simple street kid he thought he was. He was Mathias, former king of Myrddin. And Lilith was very much insane.
He collapsed in the dirt next to his grave. He felt so many things all at once: betrayal, anguish, anger— it was all the same. He’d been better off not knowing. His curiosity got the best of him, and he should have left his contact with the queen well enough alone.
He clenched his fists and dug his claws into his hands. “He fucking did it. Why, I don’t know, but he fucking did it. How could Vlad bring me here with her?”
* * * * *
Vlad sat in his chambers, staring out over the grounds. It was difficult for him, but he knew what had to be done. He was going to force Mathias to remember. He’d spent too many years without his friend.
“Vlad.” Nossy said.
Tepes jumped. “I hate it when you do that!”
Nossy smiled sadly. “You can blame Mother for that ability...but I’m here about far more important matters than my abilities.”
Vlad stepped away from the window. “What’s wrong?”
“My mother. I don’t know. It’s almost like Mathias being here has brought back that side of her.”
Vlad’s eyes widened. “What makes you say that?”
“I was just with her. Granted, she’s never been right, but she has that look in her eye again. The same look she had when it was bad before. She’s acting strangely and refuses to leave Mathias alone.”
“Where is Mathias?”
“I passed him on my way here. He was wandering the hallways, but I do not think that he is there now.” Nossy walked over to the window and looked out. In the distance, he could see a small black lump beside the rose bush. “He’s at his grave.”
“Myrddin be damned. How long has he been there?”
Nossy scratched at his head with a claw. “How in the hell am I supposed to know?”
Vlad nodded and left the chambers.
* * * * *
Mathias still could not believe how he’d been betrayed. Tepes had placed him within the jaws of the beast. It was almost as if Tepes wanted him to die at her hands. Try as he might, Mathias just wanted to forget about everything and go back to being that ignorant confused boy he’d been for the last few months. But wishing was pointless— that he knew implicitly. There was no way to quiet the truth once it surfaced for good. It was time to buck up and face the music.
He laid his head against the snow, allowing the water to collect on his skin. He raised his head and stared at the bones that once belonged to him. The time for being a child was over. He knew that now.
Being an old man trapped in the body of a child was not a good thing. The adolescent hormones withstanding, he did not have the strength to fight off those who meant him harm. That meant he had to be more aware. To do this, he needed to calm down and get his bearings on the situation.
While he thought that Lilith probably did want him dead, he didn’t know for sure. He couldn’t fathom why Tepes would let her be here if she had not regained her senses, but that produced a founded fear in Mathias. He knew what she was capable of, and if she lost her mind again, the children at the school were in danger.
That was the main problem. He still did not know why she chose to believe Lestan in the first place. He twitched his wings. Not to mention why Vlad was so chummy with the coward.
The only way he could save himself was to understand his enemy, and there was too much he didn’t know. It was time to put an end to this war of egos, once and for all.
Before he could act out anything, Mathias spied Tepes running toward him. Again, Mathias steeled himself, keeping his outside demeanor calm. He had to hide what he knew. There was no one at the school he could tr
ust.
“Mathias!” Tepes was outside the memorial circle.
Mathias stared. “What.”
“Come inside. It’s much too cold out here.”
“It doesn’t feel cold to me.” Mathias rubbed his hands over his pants to wipe the dirt from them.
“We need to discuss what we are going to do about everything.”
Mathias began to breathe hard. His blood was boiling. “What everything are you talking about?”
Vlad sighed and scratched at his eyes with his hand. “Don’t be this way, Mathias.”
Mathias’ brain switched back to normal. It was almost like the old Mathias and the new Mathias were seeing out of the same set of eyes. “How can you say that? How the fuck can you say that?” Mathias lunged— his speed was like a blur. At one moment, Mathias was sitting on the ground next to his grave, and in the blink of an eye, he was standing beside Tepes, his claws flexed, ready to attack.
“Calm down, Mathias,” Tepes said with a quiver in his voice.
“Why should I? You knew she was here. Why did you even bring me here?”
“I brought you here in the hope that you would remember who you were.”
Mathias snorted. “You placed me in the most dangerous situation possible just so that I would remember? That is the stupidest thing I ever heard. What difference would it have made if I never remembered?”
“I missed you. I didn’t think that far ahead, Mathias. I wanted you to remember, and besides this is my home.”
“Were you always this stupid?”
“Please, Mathias. Relax. I meant no harm.”
Mathias stared at Tepes for a moment, and then stalked off in the opposite direction.
“Where are you going, Mathias?” Tepes called.
Mathias stopped and turned around. “Some place safe.”
* * * * *
Mathias crept over the hills surrounding the castle grounds. He wandered for hours, trying to figure out which way to go, but he had no sense of direction. There were no shadows to follow, and just when he thought that he was getting somewhere, he would come across a branch he would recognize. Very soon, he realized that he was out of his element. He was in the woods, alone with nothing to eat but animals he would have to catch. While he could vaguely remember hunting in his lifetime before, his current experience lent nothing to help him. All he knew fully was how to kill and how to fight, but that knowledge was focused toward the streets and not much else.
Things would definitely be easier if by just remembering he had all of his powers back, but it didn’t work that way. He was just a fifteen-year-old who had been turned into a vampire. He still had trouble popping his wings in and out by himself.
He tried to pop out his wings, and after several tries, he finally managed. He ran out of the trees and took to flight. He managed to get just over the castle when a sudden updraft of wind knocked him sideways. He tried to recover, but came crashing down in a copse of trees. He felt a stiff branch break through the skin of one wing and felt the skin rip as his body broke the branch and he fell to the forest floor.
He curled up under an old tree to meet his death. It was cold, and it hurt too much to move. He imagined that he would end up much like he did in his previous lifetime— withering away until all that was left was the bones.
Death seemed to be following him. It would have been so much easier if he’d never been made a vampire.
Then it struck him. If he’d never met Nic, he may not have become one. What was the thing Nic wanted? He’d asked him for the skull of a real vampire.
“Goddamn.”
It was Nic who’d put all of this in motion. For all he knew, Nic could have alerted Vlad somehow. Nic had killed Lucretia too, he was sure of it. Lucretia had asked to get off the street, but she wasn’t specific enough. Nic was the one who’d done it all. Too bad he really was dying; otherwise he’d get his revenge. Lucretia shouldn’t have had to die.
Gradually, he drifted off into a cold and fitful sleep; the stillness of the woods easing him into a slumber like a mother’s song.
* * * * *
Nossy flapped and landed soundlessly in the top of a tall tree. He looked down. Mathias was there, eyelashes already sparkling with crystals of ice. Nossy took Mathias’ wing in his hands, said a few words of magic over it, and the wing smoothed out and the skin knitted itself back together. He picked Mathias up and took flight.
He didn’t care how angry Mathias would be when he woke. He was not going to let the boy die again. This time, things were going to be done right.
* * * * *
Mathias gradually realized that he was no longer cold. He was warm and dry. Slowly, he opened his eyes. He was not in a dream, and imagined that someone must have taken him from the woods and placed him in a bed. Mathias looked around and saw objects in the darkness of the room, but something about it made him feel at home, and more importantly, safe.
The smell of the place seemed familiar, almost a musty odor. Carefully, he sat up in the bed and allowed his eyes to adjust. The room was small and cluttered, but homey. Books were strewn across the floor and over every available surface. The walls were covered in old tapestries, some parts faded, but Mathias could barely make out the designs in the dim light. What furniture he could see under the piles of books looked well used.
Before he could get out of bed, he heard a rustle. It was coming from right above the bed he was on. Mathias raised his head, and found himself looking into a pair of eyes that glinted in the darkness of the room.
Mathias screamed and leapt from the bed.
Nossy fell from the ceiling where he’d been perched and laughed hysterically. “If only you could have seen your face!”
Mathias glared. “Having fun, are we?”
“You know it.”
Mathias slumped down onto the floor and whatever books were beneath him. “So why am I here?”
“Why are we all here?”
Mathias rolled his eyes. “No, really.”
Nossy jumped up and perched on the end of the bed. “Use your head, Mathias. How do you think you got here?”
“Ok, I’ll bite. Why did you save me?”
Nossy chittered for a moment and looked at the boy who held the soul of his friend. “Perhaps it is simple to say that I wasn’t about to lose you a second time.”
* * * * *
Mathias didn’t go back to Vlad or his lessons. He tried not to think about anything. He stayed in Nosferatu’s rooms. Sometimes, staying with Nosferatu proved both irritating and interesting. Nosferatu had this awful habit of creeping wherever he went which drove Mathias nuts. He didn’t like getting scared out of his skin.
One afternoon, not long after Mathias started staying with Nosferatu, the elder vampire kept staring at Mathias.
It all got to be too much after about forty-five minutes. “What!”
Nosferatu blinked his eyes rapidly. “I suppose now is as good a time as any.”
“A good time for what?”
“To talk about the holidays,” Nossy said. There was something about Nosferatu that was hesitant.
Mathias paused. “You stared at me for almost an hour to ask about Christmas?” He couldn’t fathom how ludicrous the whole idea was. After a moment, he began to laugh.
Nosferatu looked at Mathias, puzzled. “Are you well, Mathias?”
Mathias fell out of his chair and rolled around on the floor. “Am I well?” Mathias asked and then began to laugh even harder.
Nossy allowed a stiff expression to creep over his face. “I surely don’t understand what is so funny.”
Mathias sat up, holding his stomach. “You sat and stared at me... because you wanted to know if I wanted to celebrate Christmas.”
Nossy rolled his eyes. “I do not think you realize what that means here.”
Mathias stared at Nossy.
“Celebrating the holidays means taking part of certain festivities. Festivities in which all who reside here will attend, including the Q
ueen.”
That makes a difference. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to celebrate the holidays, but he didn’t want to have to deal with having to see Tepes, and with the Queen shit, it was better off if he didn’t. “I think I’ll pass then,” he said.
Nosferatu shook his head. “Mathias, surely you don’t mean that?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“Mathias Drvar, are you telling me that you are willing to pass up Christmas because you do not want to face your Queen?”
“That’s exactly what I’m telling you,” Mathias said, picking up a book.
Nossy clucked his tongue against his teeth. “I never would have thought that the great Mathias would let fear stop him from anything...”
Mathias glared. “I hadn’t been tortured before. But I’m not going to let you have that over me. I’ll come to your stupid celebration, but if she does anything I don’t like, I’m taking her out- you got me?”
Nosferatu developed a sly glint in his eyes. “Yes, Mathias. I got you.”
* * * * *
Nossy wandered the halls, wondering about what would and would not happen during the holiday celebration. His mother was a serious problem. And although Mathias had not told him anything, he suspected that his mother had done something to him. What, he was not sure.
But the other issue was Vlad. It was of Nossy’s opinion that the holiday celebration would be the perfect time to mend bridges between Vlad and Mathias. It wasn’t that Nosferatu minded Mathias living with him, but the truth was, ever since Mathias had gone to die in the woods, Vlad hadn’t left his rooms.
And, for the time being, Mathias needed some time alone. It was time that Mathias stopped fearing the world so much. His sincere hope was that the boy would come around and realize that Lilith could be controlled, and what had happened before was not going to happen again. The Order had made sure of it. Even Lilith herself was not aware of the safeguards in place.
As he got closer to Vlad’s domain, Nossy began to creep, sticking to the shadows. Things were about to become very interesting indeed. Now that he had managed to get Mathias to agree to join in on the holiday celebration, his plan could fully come to fruition.
Once Nossy arrived at Vlad’s chamber door, he smiled. “Shall I make my presence known? Or, shall I enter unannounced and scare him?” Nossy mumbled.
Tail of the Devil Page 14