by Stina
“Witch!”
“That’s what they call me.” She cackled again. “I prefer my name, Aika: a name that you will be very familiar with! Now drink!”
She waved her hands and forced them to get on all fours. As their faces neared the corpse of the dead wolf, they heard her saying an incantation in another language. Before their eyes, the pool of red blood turned golden right before they took their first drink.
Mezza released Cairo, and the boy took a step back, gasping for air. He tried to make sense of the vision that Mezza had shown him and couldn’t help but feel pity for his king.
“Your entire family—”
“Slaughtered, like cattle. All because the witch and her pet were bored.”
“So you were created by witches?”
“Yes.”
“What about the others? I thought there were five of you.”
“Yes. They were created by Aika in the same manner.”
“You worked for her?”
“Yes, for many years. She and other witches used us as guard dogs. That is, until—”
“Until what?”
“Until the pain and sorrow of what they had done to us became too much to bear. Our lives were stripped from us, and we were turned into beasts that they should have never expected to control forever. Aika did not know it then, but she had made us much stronger than she intended. We had the mixture of mortal, wolf, and witch magic dancing around in our DNA. We were unstoppable.”
“Until the creation of the first vampires.”
“Yes, the witches’ second set of pets. Their favorites.”
Cairo noticed the resentment dripping from his tone. “Where are the witches now? In hiding?”
“No, they never hide. They’re watching, as they always do. And now that I am awake I am going to give them the show of their miserable, lengthy lives. Once we have defeated the vampires, we will then go after the witches’ coven.”
Cairo gulped. After Mezza had shown him the image of Aika, he hadn’t been able to get it out of his head. The last thing he wanted was to face an army full of women who looked like her, but he would follow Mezza into any battlefield. Suddenly he remembered the other reason why he had approaced Mezza.
“Sire! I have news,” Cairo said. “I should have said this first, but then we got to talking, and you showed me the vision and—”
“Cairo, slow down and speak.”
“Sorry, sire. Our human spy has told us that the vampires have begun to move out.”
“Where are they going?”
“I’m not sure, but from the sounds of it there are hundreds of them.”
Cairo’s words were like music to Mezza’s ears, and he might never know it. Mezza’s handsome human face spread into an animalistic smile and his forehead crinkled.
“I knew that they would sense my presence. Send trackers to follow them at once,” he said. “Make sure they keep their distance and are sure to not be seen. The vampires are headed to to Ancients’ fortress to prepare for the full moon. Cairo, we will soon know the location of the Ancient vampires.”
His sinister laugh filled the air and caused the birds to take off from the trees that they were perched in. He finally found the missing piece to his puzzle.
To Be Continued