The Gates

by Rachael Wade

  “What have you done, Mother? What, it wasn’t enough you killed his father? You kept his mother from him and took his love, too? And turned her?”

  Enhanced strength was suddenly of no use to me; I felt my knees try to give way when I saw Samira’s eyes fill with tears. She didn’t blink, didn’t move, just stared at her daughter in awe, paying Marie no attention.

  “Arianna, I—”

  “Save it, Mother. Would you care to tell me about Joel as well? What was that promise you made me, the last time I saw you?” She folded her arms and raised her eyebrows.

  Samira tightened her fists at her sides, looked down.

  “Ah, yes, now I remember.” Arianna cleared her throat and adopted a mock Russian accent. “‘Contrary to what you believe, I’d never harm the one you love.’ Something like that, yes?” She pulled out her silver dagger and sliced it clear across the room, chucking it into Samira’s throne chair. It lodged in the velvet with a thud. “Too bad you allowed your monsters to tear him limb from limb!” she screamed, her shoulders shaking.

  Marie, hearing that the woman she served had caused her son’s death, toppled over to one side in silent devastation. The vampires next to her caught her before she met the ground.

  “Ari,” Gavin whispered. “Arianna, I—”

  “Don’t!” She shot her hand up, tears streaming down her face. “I understand what you are trying to do, Gavin. And by the looks of it, you probably have good reason for wanting to go after my father now. He’ll have to answer for all he’s done.” She faced the resistance, putting her back to Samira. “But we will go through with our original plan, and we will destroy my mother. She killed Joel, and she destroyed Gavin’s family. Not to mention the unspeakable horror she’s allowed to happen here in exile—”

  “She can’t be killed, sis.”

  With a gasp, Arianna whirled around to face him, bewilderment on her face.

  Gavin spoke quickly. “Not unless we destroy your father first. She’s protected by his magic—a security measure for his power source. I’m sorry, but that’s the truth.”

  “How do you know she isn’t lying to you? That’s what she does Gavin, you know this.” She gestured to his mother, then to Samira. “The uprisings from the last war nearly killed her when she practically wiped out the city. She can be killed, I know she can.”

  “I don’t know for sure. But she handed over my mother, and she wants you back.”

  “Well, I say we take our chances and try anyway.” She turned to glare at Samira, a hungry malice dressing her face. “And if we can’t, we will set everyone free anyway and leave her here to rot. Let my father deal with her. When she’s destroyed, our curse will be broken.”

  “The curse will not be broken as long as he exists, my child.”

  Though I didn’t think it possible, Samira’s voice sounded not like her own, but of someone frail and shaken. “What you speak of,” she continued in a stronger voice, “the last time my kingdom was almost overthrown … I was never in danger of being destroyed. Those are stories, speculation over the centuries. My only real danger then was your father, when he came to clean up the mess. He is the author. He holds that power. It all began with him, it all ends with him. I am merely a gatekeeper, given the power to change immortals to human, to admit them into exile to feed his power. I have no need to lie about this.” She shook her head. “Not this.”

  Arianna walked over to Gavin, her anger emanating so strongly it almost knocked me down. “Okay, brother. Enlighten me.”

  “We need to return to Vivienne,” he said, “she might be able to help us figure this out. We don’t have much time. Scarlet’s turned against us, and it won’t be long before word spreads to Gérard of our plans here. It’s a miracle he hasn’t shown up yet.”

  “Scarlet.” Arianna rubbed her temple, hissing. “That sneaky little …”

  “Please, Arianna, focus. Let’s do this. This might be the only way.”

  Along with the others, I waited in silence that nearly choked in its viscidity. What seemed hours passed before she replied, and when she at last did, I felt one weight lift and another take its place. The past three months had formed an elusive, toxic concoction, one that stirred until it bubbled up and over, all around us. We were left to repair the damage and make sense of it, to somehow teach ourselves to be immune to its vileness and forge on in spite of its effects. I looked around the room, at everyone who inhabited the space, person and monster, slave and master, aware we were in the madness together, swirling around in the same mess, all out to get something, a piece of our own pie. But I knew that in the midst of that noxious stew, coming to terms with our poisons was only the beginning.

  Ever forward, Cecile’s voice replayed in my mind. Ever forward.

  “When do we begin?” Arianna asked.

  “Right now.” Gavin replied, voice stern, jaw set, stance ready.

  EPILOGUE

  The warm Louisiana breeze sent balmy gusts around the driveway and the Spanish moss rustled in the wind, the sounds defined and eerie. Aside from the whispers of the elements, the air was deathly quiet. I’d been here before. This is a dream. Just a dream. When did I fall asleep? Why couldn’t I wake up?

  Once again, no one was around and everything felt stale and somber. I stood in front of Gavin’s plantation home, with the same strange urge to reach into my jeans pocket to retrieve the skeleton key. I surveyed the yard once more before dashing inside to run up the exhausting flight of stairs. I knew what was next. My journey to the second floor.

  Making my way from doorknob to doorknob, I attempted to unlock each door with the key. Then I remembered. This trick skeleton key only worked on one door in the house. I reached the end of the hall and turned the key until that doorknob clicked, pushed the door back and let it swing open as I had the last time I’d had this dream, watching intently as it revealed Gavin’s mother’s room.

  The faint, familiar perfume scent filled my nostrils, and the sliver of sunshine beaming through the drapes warmed my skin as I drew closer to the bedside. I reached around my throat to feel the necklace, knowing I’d only find bare skin. Closing my eyes, I hovered over the bed and traced the pillow with my fingers, searching, searching …

  “There!” I sprang forward, shaking my head, to find myself in the passenger seat, Gavin gripping the steering wheel as he drove. We were driving out of the Breaux Bridge area, the familiar sugarcane fields passing by as we headed toward the interstate exchange.

  “Cam? Did you hear me?”

  I blinked, fluttering my lashes to focus on the dashboard, dizzy from the dream. “Huh? No, must’ve dozed off, sorry. Hey, I thought our kind doesn’t sleep.” I turned to him.

  “You weren’t sleeping. I’ve been talking to you, did you hear a word I said?” He glanced between the road and my face, his brow furrowed. “You’ve been staring out the window, wide awake. And then you just freaked out— Are you okay?”

  “What?” I’d been awake? How was that possible? I’ve been dreaming, I’m sure of it. My chin dropped, and my gaze landed on the necklace. “I was dreaming about the key … and finding your mom’s necklace on the pillow …” I ran my fingers over the crescent locket, then closed them over it, focusing on the vividness of the dream. “Gav?” I tilted my head to the side, rubbing my thumb over the locket’s inscription.

  “Yeah? What is it?”

  “Before I knew what you were, you told me your dad was killed when someone broke into the house. But then I found out the truth, that Samira had killed him in Amaranth, along with your mother, supposedly.”

  “Okay … I’m not following.”

  “Well, we know what really happened to your parents in Amaranth now, but why the story about him being killed because of a break-in?”

  He relaxed his grip around the steering wheel a bit, settled into his seat. “The story about someone breaking in was something my mother told me back then, I think for my sake, to lessen the blow that he actually chose to leave. He�
�d really decided to leave for Amaranth, left her the necklace and took off when she wasn’t home. It turned out later that my grandfather and I were right. She left the necklace for us, as a sign that she went to join him. When I figured it out, I decided to visit them in Amaranth. Samira was so impressed that I went there, human, looking for my parents, she agreed with my parents’ condition for visitation rights. They wouldn’t continue to serve her in the city unless she agreed.”

  “So you knew your parents were frozen souls growing up?”

  “Yeah, I remember knowing they were different. All through my teen years, they didn’t look a hair older. They finally told me, and then I learned about the exile, and about the portal, too. My father was friends with Gérard back then. Dad and I visited that bayou together often. Wait a second.”

  The car slowed just before we were about to pull onto the interstate. He veered us toward the roadside and put the car into park, turned to face me. “Why do you ask?”

  “I’m not sure,” I pressed my lips together. “But I keep seeing the same dream. Each time I’m frantic to unlock your mom’s room with this key, to find her necklace. And I get this feeling that your dad is important to the vision somehow, since he’s the one that gave the necklace to her. I know our kind can read energies, but are you sure we aren’t psychic or something? Maybe I’m seeing something from the past, or something to do with the future.…”

  “No, that can’t be.” He reached out and stroked the locket. “We read energy from emotions, not events. And I think it’s too early to know yet what kind of reader you are. Our reading abilities usually become clearer with time. You begin to notice them as you’re around humans more. You start to notice what kind of emotions you’re sensitive to.” He let go of the locket and reached for the shifter, eased us back onto the highway.

  “We’ll ask Vivienne if she has any ideas,” he said. “Even though they’re not psychic, the witches are more familiar with the nature of premonitions and their meaning than we are—if that’s even what you’re dealing with.” He reached over and took my hand, picking up speed as we raced down the interstate. “We’ll figure it out, baby. Don’t worry. Just try and relax.”

  He rubbed my hand with his thumb in circular, soothing motions. Driving felt nice, somehow helped calm my nerves. All I wanted was to fly, but this, riding in a car, was so human. I’d insisted on it, needing to hang on to something from my former, mortal life. I had nothing left after our time in Amaranth. And Gavin still frowned upon flying anyway, even though I wasn’t human anymore. So overprotective, I’d huffed.

  We made it to Lafayette and Vivienne’s shop came into view, situated behind the little pizzeria. Or what was left of it. The old brick building looked charred, leveled from what must’ve been a fire. The windows were boarded up and black, thick stains lined their edges.

  “Guess they’re out of business,” Gavin mumbled. “Shame. It was a nice place.” He stepped out of the car and helped me out, gaze fixed on the barren pizzeria. I lowered my shades to lessen the sunlight’s intensity and snugged down my baseball cap, ducking my head out of view from the street. The bookstore, my favorite, former place of employment, was within walking distance, and the last thing I needed was for Carol, my old boss, or an old friend from work to spot me.

  Slipping through the shop’s front door, I smiled. That same tired old record looped in the background, the soft crackles and strange chants transforming the room into a peculiar, hypnotic sanctuary. I turned to shut the door behind me, but Gavin’s wrist jumped out and stopped me, his stance predatory.

  Reflexively, I reached for my silver dagger at my hip, slipping my fingers under my shirt. I hadn’t had the luxury of learning any combat skills yet, but Gavin made sure I had the blade on me at all times, regardless. Another step forward sent my senses on red alert, the smell of fresh blood rich and torturing. I could feel my eyes harden, knew they’d gone dead black.

  “Cam, go wait outside.” Gavin eased the front door open to let fresh air in.

  “No. I’ll push through it.”

  “You’re not strong enough, damn it. Get out. Now.”

  I pushed past him and whipped a tissue from my pocket, covering my mouth and nose with it, following the trail of red around the counter. Gavin lunged forward and tackled me to the wall and I dodged him, ducking under his arm, whizzing around him again before pouncing and landing directly behind the register. “Oh, oh God …” The gargled cry emanated from my throat when I saw Vivienne’s body at my feet in a pool of crimson, her throat torn open and eyes wide. I coughed into the tissue, forcing myself not to inhale.

  “What did I say, Camille? Get out! Shit, wait …” Gavin hopped over the counter and bent down, searching for something. Shoulders and teeth shaking, I averted my gaze, unable to look at the woman who’d sacrificed her safety for us.

  “This can’t be happening. Not Vivienne, oh God,” I mumbled, stepping over her body and around the counter, gripping it to hold myself up.

  “It’s fresh, so whoever did it was just here. Hurry, help me search her stuff.” Gavin shuffled through piles of papers, opened drawers and rummaged through them.

  “What are we looking for?” I gripped the counter harder, my feet seeming immobile.

  “Don’t know. Something, anything. This’ll be the last time we step foot here, so let’s make it count.”

  I shoved the tissue back into my pocket and took a deep breath, waiting to see how I handled the reaction to the smell before I moved over the counter again. Gavin glanced at me every few seconds; I saw that poker face I knew so well, but with a hint of rising panic in his gray eyes. I could feel the black in my own eyes shift, matching his shade of subdued gray as I desensitized to the scent.

  “It looks like she was doing research or something here … but I can’t make it out.” He squinted at Vivienne’s handwriting on a piece of old parchment. It looked like the same parchment used in the Book of the Ancients she’d given me.

  Ancient Ones , the phrase echoed in my ear as I sifted through piles of paper. “Hey, Gav?”

  “I mean, I think I can read some of it, but all of this scribbling is impossible to understand.”

  Revenge is sweet. Another phrase caught my attention. I listened to translate the French Creole sounds to English in my head, working to filter out the rustling sounds of our search. “Um … Gavin …”

  “What does this look like to you, Cam? I guess it’s a spell or something—”

  “Gavin!” I reached out and covered his mouth, lifted a finger to my lips, focusing on finding similarities in the English language to link some of the words together.

  Traitor. Dust. Bind. Crush.

  I turned to the record player next to us, my eyes zoning in on it in realization.

  “It’s in French, can you make it out? Oh, I think I got it …”

  I moved to the record player and lowered my ear to the chanting sounds. Piece by piece, it all came together:

  I invoke you, Ancient Ones

  Take my charge and crush them now

  Crush them, to dust from which they came

  Revenge is sweet, revenge is just

  Take now thine traitors, bind them

  Bind them, return them to dust

  Gavin leaned in next to me, listening to the repetitive chant, his gaze dropping to the record sleeve next to the machine. He scanned it, lifting it to read the title. “It’s an original conjure,” he said. “A revenge hex, for traitors and enemies.”

  “Sounds like someone’s trying to tell us something.” I gulped, backing away from the record. “Like an original witch …”

  Gavin pulled his gaze from the record sleeve and lifted his head, his lips parted. “Gérard.”

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  COMING SOON...

  The Tragedy of Knowledge

  Book Three of The Resistance Trilogy

  www.RachaelWade.com

  Available in print and e-book on May 25, 2012 from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, and Goodreads.

  An Adult Contemporary Romance / Realistic Fiction Novel

  Fear is sabotage’s sweetest weapon.

  Kate has no time for meaningless romantic charades, and definitely no time for hot college professors who are full of themselves and smitten with her. Constantly battling eviction notices, tuition she can’t afford, and a sick, dependent mother, the last thing she needs is to be distracted with someone else’s complicated baggage.

  When she stumbles into Ryan Campbell’s creative writing class, he is only “Mr. Campbell” to her, until Ryan finds himself captivated by her writing and she is forced to face their mutual attraction. His cocky know-it-all syndrome is enough to send her running in the other direction, and his posse of female admirers and playboy reputation are enough to squander any odds in her favor.

  But underneath Ryan’s abrasive facade is something to behold, and she can’t stay away for long. Ryan and Kate must decide who they’re willing to become and fight against their former selves if they want to make things work. That’s if academia, vicious vixens, old skeletons, and their own mastery at self-destruction don’t pummel their efforts first.

  978-0-9840208-4-3 ~ www.RachaelWade.com

  PRESERVATION

  COMING MAY 25, 2012

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  1. Gone with the Wind