“What’s this about?” the oldest one—Elizabeth—asked.
“I have urgent business to attend to outside of the Vale.” I spoke quickly and confidently, not wanting them to suspect that anything was amiss. They—along with most citizens of the Vale—didn’t even know that Laila was dead. There was no need to send them into a panic.
“What kind of business?” The youngest one—Jessica—spoke up. “Does it have anything to do with where Queen Laila’s disappeared to for the past few days?”
That was the story the citizens in the Vale were being told—that Queen Laila was away on a business trip. When she was alive, she went away on business often enough that no one suspected a thing.
“That’s confidential.” I remained as stern as possible, since questions would only lead to trouble. “But while I’m gone, I’d like for the five of you to hold up the boundary of the Vale.”
As expected, doubt and confusion crossed over their eyes.
There’d only been one other time when they’d maintained the boundary—when I’d gone to Ireland to call upon the fae. Then, Laila had told the witches herself that she needed them to uphold the boundary until I returned. Laila hadn’t been happy about it—I was the only witch she trusted to uphold the boundary of the Vale—but she’d wanted me to go to the fae and ask about Geneva’s sapphire ring badly enough that she’d entrusted the boundary to these five witches while I’d been gone.
“Is this order from the queen?” Elizabeth was the first to speak up.
“It is.” I nodded. “Since she’s gone, she instructed me to tell you in her stead.”
“What about Prince Scott?” she asked. “Does he know about this?”
“He doesn’t,” I snapped. “And he’s not to know until I’m gone. This is for the benefit of the Vale. Do you understand me?” I stared her down with the most intimidating look I could muster.
It was times like these that I wished I had the royal vampires’ ability of compulsion. But I didn’t have compulsion, so my rank as Queen Laila’s second in command would have to do.
“You’re to uphold the boundary around the Vale until I return,” I repeated, hoping to drill the order into their minds. “Understood?”
Of course, I had no intention of ever returning to the Vale, but there was no way I was telling them that. Because the truth was, the five of them together couldn’t create a boundary as strong as I could on my own. They knew that as well as I.
But protecting the Vale was no longer my priority.
I rested my hand flat against my stomach, knowing that from this point forward, my child would always come first—even before the place I’d called home for all my life.
“Understood.” Jessica straightened her shoulders, appearing the most confident of the five. “When do we start?”
I glanced at the bag I’d already packed up and left next to my bed. It had all my favorite clothes, jewelry, and anything else I’d deemed valuable.
It had taken packing a bag with the knowledge that I might never return to realize how all of the things I owned weren’t as important as I’d always believed them to be.
“You start now,” I said.
I confirmed that they’d constructed the boundary, then I walked over to my bag, placed my hand on it, and teleported to the Haven.
Annika
I gazed up the golden stairs leading up into the clouds in more awe than I’d felt upon entering the Tree of Life.
“Together?” I asked Jacen, taking his hand in mine.
“Together,” he repeated, and then we stepped through the doorway.
Well, I stepped through the doorway. Jacen hit some kind of invisible wall, and his hand instantly disconnected with mine.
“What happened?” I reached my arm through the door, and it passed through easily.
Jacen tried to do the same, but his hand couldn’t make it through the frame. It was like there was glass blocking him from passing through. He banged his hand against it, but nothing changed.
I walked back over to his side with no problems whatsoever. “Let’s try again.” I reached for his hand again, focusing hard on bringing him with me as we stepped through the frame.
Like last time, I was able to walk through, but he wasn’t.
“It’s not letting me in,” he said. “You’ll have to go without me.”
I frowned, looking up the stairs. “I don’t want to leave you behind,” I said, joining him back at the other side of the door.
He took my hands, gazing down at me with an emotion I couldn’t quite place.
All I knew in that moment was that he cared about me deeply.
“This is your mission—your destiny,” he said. “Trust me, I hate watching you go on without me. I hate knowing that if you need me, I won’t be able to get to you. But out of all the doors in this place, your instinct led you to this one. There’s something special waiting up there. Since I’m clearly not allowed through, it’s up to you to find out what that something is.”
I looked back up the golden stairway, knowing in my heart that he was right. I needed to go up there.
Jacen had been immensely helpful in getting us to this point—I surely would have died without his help. But it was time to continue on my own.
“Stay safe,” I told him, kissing him again. As we kissed, an emotion brewed in my chest—something stronger than I’d ever felt before.
Before I could figure out what it was, he pulled away and rested his forehead against mine. “You’re the one who needs to be staying safe,” he said. “There’s no need to worry about me. I’ll be waiting right here when you get back.”
I smiled, since I knew he would be. There were times when I still couldn’t believe that this magnificent vampire prince had given up so much for me—but this time wasn’t one of them.
I walked through the doorway again, not letting go of his hands until the barrier forced them from mine.
He stepped back, and the golden door slammed shut, leaving me alone.
At first I felt afraid. Tears filled my eyes, and I pressed my hand against the door, wishing Jacen could have come with me.
But there was no point in wishing for what couldn’t be. So I spun around and gazed up the winding steps, taking a deep breath to build my confidence. I wasn’t getting any feelings of danger up ahead—only warmth and safety. As if a part of me belonged here—wherever “here” was.
And so, I walked onto the first step and rested my hand on the rail, beginning my trek up the golden stairs.
Annika
The trek up the stairs felt like it took hours. Luckily, my Nephilim abilities stopped me from getting winded.
Eventually, I reached the bottom of the cloud. I couldn’t see much after that—just a never-ending white fog—but I used the handrail to continue to guide myself up the stairs. I prepped myself for the air to feel thicker inside the cloud, but there was no difference at all.
I soon surfaced at the top of it, coming sight to sight with a man surrounded by a glowing golden aura. His skin was perfectly smooth, and in his all-white outfit, he appeared to be ageless. His eyes were gold as well. Not just a slim ring of gold around the pupils like I had as a Nephilim, but fully gold.
Just as my angel instinct let me know I was safe in this place, it also let me know that whoever this man was, I could trust him, too.
“Annika Pearce,” he said with a kind smile. “I’ve been expecting you.”
“Hi.” I wrung my hands together, unsure what else to say. A gazillion questions whizzed through my mind, but I started with what seemed like the most important ones. “Where am I? What is this place? Who are you?”
“My name is Emmanuel, and I’m an angel.” His voice was smooth and melodic, like listening to a beautiful song. “Earlier, you entered the main hall of the Tree of Life, which houses the doors to the infinite realms. The one you took led you here—to Heaven.”
“Heaven?” I blinked, sure I must have heard incorrectly. “As in the Heaven
?”
“Yes, this is the Heaven,” he confirmed.
“So I can see my family again?” My heart leapt with the possibility.
“Heaven is only for angels and for the Nephilim invited by the angels,” he said. “Those who die go to the Beyond—a place veiled from the universe we know.”
“So my family isn’t here.” My eyes watered, my burst of hope shattered.
“I’m sorry, but no,” he said kindly. “Your family is in the Beyond.”
“Okay,” I said, since what else could I do but accept it? I just hoped that whatever the Beyond was like, they were happy there.
“However, we’re not here to talk about the Beyond,” he said. “We’re here to talk about you—or more importantly, about the item you seek.”
“The Holy Grail.” I looked around the platform where we stood, seeing only endless clouds.
“Yes.” He nodded. “But as it seems you’ve already noticed, the Grail isn’t here right now.”
“Oh.” I frowned. “So if the Grail isn’t here, why am I here?”
“I might know where the Grail is,” he said. “But first, aren’t you interested in hearing why the Grail is needed right now?”
“I am.” I brightened at the possibility that I might finally get some answers.
“I expected as much,” he said. “Do you remember the moment in the Crystal Cavern when you reached for a sword to protect yourself from a swarm of bats?”
“Yes.” I shuddered at the memory of those bats flying down from the ceiling and coming for me all at once.
“That sword wasn’t just any sword,” he said. “It was an ancient, holy object used to imprison the immortal spirit of the greater demon Samael—the last demon who walked the Earth after they were banished to Hell forever. The sword was intended to be a punishment worse than Hell. The moment you drew blood with the sword was the moment when Samael’s spirit was released upon the Earth.”
“What?” My hand rushed to my mouth in horror. “You mean that I released a spirit of a… demon?”
“You did,” he confirmed.
Horror filled me to my bones. Had this all been an elaborate trick? Had I been led here not to retrieve the Grail, but to receive a consequence for what I’d unknowingly done?
“I never meant to do it,” I said, praying he believed me. “I didn’t know.”
“I know that,” he said, although I didn’t relax yet, since that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to punish me. “What’s done is done—there’s no way to reverse what’s already happened. All we can focus on now is making this right.”
I finally could breathe again, since from what he was saying, I wasn’t about to be smitten down by an angel, or whatever an angel would do as punishment. However, I’d still released a demon soul upon the Earth.
How could I possibly make something like that right?
“Can the demon be put back inside the sword?” I asked.
“He should be sent back to where demons belong—to Hell,” Emmanuel said. “But soon after Samael was released, he possessed the body of a young witch named Marigold. He’s been using a combination of his and Marigold’s powers to convince the weaker minded wolves of the Vale that they’re having prophetic dreams of a Savior who will rise and bring peace and prosperity to their species. Samael has the wolves convinced that in order for this ‘Savior’ to rise, the vampires who live in the Vale must be eliminated.”
This all sounded familiar, but at the same time, it didn’t. Jacen had told me about his meeting with the First Prophet Noah, including what Noah had told him of the wolves’ Savior. But from what he’d told me, both he and Noah truly believed that the Savior was legitimate.
Once I returned with the truth of what Emmanuel had told me—and a gut instinct knew that he was telling me the truth—it would change everything.
“If there’s no Savior, then why does Samael want the vampires cleared from the Vale?” I asked.
“Because Samael wants to open a Gate to Hell,” Emmanuel said. “There’s a spell that can open a Hell Gate anywhere that two tectonic plates meet—such as a mountain range—but only if enough supernatural blood is spilled on that land. By encouraging the wolves to wage war on the vampires and spill their blood in the Vale, Samael can then use Marigold’s body to cast the spell to open the Hell Gate. If he does that, the demons will be released onto Earth, and they’ll be free to destroy your realm the same way they destroyed Hell.”
He’d slammed so much information down upon me at once that I had to pause to take it all in.
“So Hell isn’t a place where bad people go where they die, just like Heaven isn’t a place where good people go where they die,” I said, still trying to get this all straight.
“Correct,” Emmanuel said. “Like I said earlier, all who die go on to the Beyond. Heaven is purely for angels, whereas Hell is purely for demons. Demons are soulless, sociopathic creatures, wired to torture and kill for enjoyment. Their realm—Hell—is locked so they can’t bring their destruction to any other realms. But the demons have destroyed Hell by using up all its resources. Now it’s practically unlivable, and they’re desperate for a new place to live. If Samael has his way, that place will be Earth.”
“We can’t let that happen,” I said. “Samael has to be stopped.”
“The cards have already started to fall—at this point, there’s no stopping what’s destined to happen,” Emmanuel said. “But it’s your fate to close the Hell Gate before it’s too late.”
“We can’t wait for the Hell Gate to be opened,” I said. “We have to stop it from being opened in the first place.”
“You may try,” he said. “But no matter what, you’re going to need to drink from this in order to have a chance at defeating Samael.”
He reached down into the cloud beside him and pulled out a large, intricately designed golden chalice—the Holy Grail itself.
Camelia
I arrived in the center of a lavish courtyard, where vampires, witches, and shifters dressed in matching white garments went about their daily tasks.
The moment I appeared, everyone stopped what they were doing and stared at me.
I shifted uncomfortably and tightened my grip on the handle of my suitcase. In my black leather pants and matching jacket, I couldn’t have stood out more if I’d tried.
But the moment of arrival to a new place—especially a place that I intended to call my future home—wasn’t the time to show weakness. So I straightened and walked to the three people nearest to me—one male vampire and two females—who were sitting on the steps hovering around a cellphone.
The man was looking at the phone as if it were a glowing meteorite that had just fallen from space.
“Hello,” I said, giving them all a curt nod. “Can one of you please tell me where I can find Mary?”
I knew enough about the other kingdoms to know that despite being the leader of the Haven, Mary didn’t use a formal title in front of her name. In the Haven, all were considered equal, including their leader.
“Finally, an outsider—and a witch at that.” The man beamed, as if I’d landed in the Haven’s courtyard straight from Heaven itself. “These two are telling me that these ‘cellphones’ were created by humans without the help of any magic.” He gestured to the phone, like he was unsure I would know what device he was speaking about. “I think they’re trying to play me for a fool. Would you mind settling this debate once and for all?”
I gave him a blank stare, unsure if this was some kind of joke or not.
“He’s serious.” The vampire to his left—a girl with jet-black hair who looked no older than twenty—sighed and rolled her eyes. “Just answer his question, and I’ll take you to Mary.”
“Cellphones were created by humans by using only science,” I said simply, directing my answer more to the woman than to the man. “Now, I’d appreciate being shown to Mary.”
“Sure thing.” She turned to the other woman she was with—a nondescript brunette.
“You’ll continue acclimating Peter while I’m gone?”
“I’ll do my best,” she said.
“Pardon me for being such a hassle.” The man—Peter—crossed his arms, looking offended. “Believe it or not, I was fascinated by science during my years. But waking up a century in the future has gotten me behind on the latest innovations…”
The dark haired vampire led me away, and I glanced back at Peter before following her toward the surrounding building.
“Did he just say that he woke up a century in the future?” I asked.
“It’s a long story,” she said. “I’m Elisa, by the way.”
“Camelia,” I replied in return.
“Camelia,” she repeated, stopping in place. “As in the witch who upholds the boundary of the Vale?”
“Yes.” I kept my answer short—I didn’t want to explain more without Mary being present.
“I didn’t think Queen Laila allowed you to leave.” Elisa apparently wasn’t put off by my clipped response. “If you’re not at the Vale, who’s maintaining the boundary there?”
“The Vale is being properly looked after,” I assured her. “I’ll explain more once I have an audience with Mary.”
She nodded—apparently she finally understood my hesitation to say any more right now—and led me inside a bright, ornate building. It was bustling with people, all dressed in the same white uniform.
“So, who was the man you were with when I arrived?” I returned to what I’d asked earlier, because I wanted to divert attention away from myself, and because I was curious. “The one who’d never seen a cellphone?”
“That was Peter,” she said. “He was turned over a century ago by Princess Karina of the Carpathian Kingdom. He’s been reported as dead since the Great War, but he recently awoke in Ireland, nearly starved to death and with no memories of the past century. Normally he would be King Nicolae’s responsibility, but when Mary got wind of his story, she insisted on retrieving him and bringing him to the Haven.”
The Vampire War Page 4