Destined

by Morgan Rice

  A vampire.

  The pounding grew louder, and one of the hinges broke, and Caitlin looked back in fear. This mob seemed determined, and she didn’t know where else to go.

  “Help me, please!” Caitlin urged.

  He continued his prayer for several moments. Finally, without looking at her, he said: “How can they kill what’s already dead?”

  There was a splintering of wood.

  “Please,” she urged. “Don’t turn me over to them.”

  He rose slowly, quiet and composed, and pointed to the altar. “In there,” he said. “Behind the curtain. There’s a trap door. Go!”

  She followed his finger, but saw only a large podium, covered in a satin cloth. She ran over to it, pulled back the cloth, and saw the trap door. She opened it, and squeezed her body into the small space.

  Tucked in, she peered out through the tiny crack. She watched the priest hurry over to a side door, and kick it open with surprising force.

  Just as he did, the main front doors were kicked in by the mob, and they came tearing down the aisle.

  Caitlin quickly slid back the curtain all the way. She hoped they hadn’t spotted her. She watched through a crack in the wood, and saw just enough to see the mob racing down the aisle, seemingly right for her.

  “That way!” screamed the priest. “The vampire fled that way!”

  He pointed out the side door, and the mob rushed right past him, and back into the night.

  After several seconds, the never-ending stream of bodies fled from the church, and all was finally silent.

  The priest closed the door, locking it behind them.

  She could hear his footsteps, walking towards her, and Caitlin, shaking with fear, with cold, slowly opened the trap door.

  He slid back the curtain and looked down at her.

  He extended a gentle hand.

  “Caitlin,” he said, and smiled. “We’ve been waiting a very long time for you.”

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  CHAPTER TWO

  Rome, 1790

  Kyle stood in the darkness, breathing hard. There were few things he hated more than confined spaces, and as he reached out in the blackness and felt the stone encasing him, he broke into a sweat.

  Trapped. Nothing was worse for him.

  He reached back and with his fist and smashed a hole right through the stone. It shattered into pieces, and he shielded his eyes from the daylight.

  If Kyle hated anything more than being trapped, it was being struck head-on by daylight, especially without his skin wraps on. He quickly jumped through the rubble and took shelter behind a wall.

  Kyle breathed deep and surveyed his surroundings, disoriented, as he wiped the dust from his eyes. This was what he hated about time travel: he never knew exactly where he’d surface. He hadn’t attempted it for centuries, and he wouldn’t have now if it weren’t for that never-ending thorn in his side, Caitlin.

  It hadn’t taken long after she’d left New York for Kyle to realize that his war was only partially won. With her still on the loose, with her tracking down the shield, he realized he could never rest at ease. He had been on the brink of winning the war, of enslaving the entire human race, of becoming the unilateral leader of the vampire race himself. But she, this pathetic little girl, was stopping him.

  As long as the shield was at large, he could not assume absolute power. He had no choice but to track her down and kill her. And if that meant going back in time, then that was what he would do.

  Breathing hard, Kyle quickly extracted a skin wrap and wrapped his arms, neck and torso. He looked around, and realized he was in a mausoleum. It looked Roman, from its markings. Rome.

  He hadn’t been here in ages. He had stirred up too much dust by smashing the marble, and the sediment hung thickly in the daylight, making it hard to tell. He took a deep breath, braced himself, and headed outside.

  He was right: it was Rome. He looked out, saw the Italian Cypress trees, and knew he could be nowhere else. He realized that he stood at the top of the Roman forum, its green grass, its hills and valleys and crumbling monuments stretched out before him in a gentle slope. It brought back memories. He had killed many people here, back when it was in use, and he had nearly been killed here once himself. He smiled at the thought of it. It was his kind of place.

  And it was the perfect place to land. The Pantheon was not far away, and within minutes, he could be before the judges of the Roman Grand Council, its most powerful coven, and have all the answers he needed. He would soon know where Caitlin was, and if all went well, have their permission to kill her.

  Not that he needed it. It was just courtesy, vampire etiquette, the following of thousand-year-old tradition. One always sought permission for a kill in someone else’s territory.

  But if they refused, he would hardly back down. It could make his life difficult, but he would kill anyone who stood in his way.

  Kyle breathed deep in the Roman air, and he felt at home. It had been too long since he’d been back. He had gotten too caught up in being in New York, in vampire politics, in a modern time and place. This was more his style. He could see the horses in the distance, the dirt roads, and guessed he was likely in the eighteenth century. Perfect. Rome was urban, but still naïve, still had 200 years of catching up to do.

  As Kyle checked himself, he saw he had survived the trip back in time fairly well. In other trips, he had been far more beaten up, had needed more recovery time. But not this time. He felt stronger than he ever had, ready to go. He felt his wings would sprout right away, that he could fly directly to the Pantheon if he wished, and put his plan into action.

  But he wasn’t quite ready. He hadn’t had a vacation in a long time, and it felt good being back.

  He wanted to explore a bit, to see and remember what it had been like to be here.

  Kyle bounded down the hill with his incredible speed, and in no time at all, he was out of the Forum and onto the bustling, crowded streets of Rome.

  He marveled that even 200 years earlier, Rome was still crowded as could be.

  Kyle slowed his pace as he blended into the crowd, walking alongside them. It was a mass of humanity. The wide boulevard, still made of dirt, held thousands of people, hurrying in every direction. It also held horses of all shapes and sizes, along with horse-drawn carts, wagons and carriages. The streets stank of body odor and horse manure. It was now all coming back to Kyle, the lack of plumbing, the lack of bathing—the stench of old times. It made him sick.

  Kyle felt himself being jostled in every direction, as the crowd grew thicker and thicker, people of all races and classes hurrying to and fro. He marveled at the primitive storefronts, selling old-fashioned Italian hats. He marveled at the small boys, dressed in rags, who ran up to him, holding out pieces of fruit to sell. Some things never changed.

  Kyle turned down a narrow, seedy alleyway, one he remembered well, hoping that it was still as it once was. He was delighted to find that it was: before him stood dozens of prostitutes, leaning against the walls, calling out to him as he walked.

  Kyle smiled wide.

  As he approached one of them—a large, buxom woman with dyed, red hair and too much makeup—she reached up and stroked his face with her hand.

  “Hey big boy,” she said, “looking for a good time? How much do you have?”

  Kyle smiled,
draped his arm around her, and directed her down a side alleyway.

  She gladly followed.

  As soon as they turned the corner, she said, “You didn’t answer my question. How much do you got—”

  It was a question she would never finish.

  Before she could finish speaking, Kyle had already sunk his teeth deep into her neck.

  She tried to scream, but he clamped her mouth shut with his free hand, and pulled her closer, drinking and drinking. He felt the human blood rush through his veins, and felt exhilarated. He had been parched, dehydrated. The time travel had exhausted him, and this was exactly what he’d needed to restore his spirits.

  As he felt her body go limp, he sucked more and more, drinking more than he could possibly need. Finally, feeling completely sated, he let her limp body drop to the floor.

  As he turned and prepared to exit, a huge man, unshaven, missing a tooth, approached. He extracted a dagger from his belt.

  The man looked down at the dead woman, then up to Kyle, and grimaced.

  “That was my property,” the man said. “You better got money for that.”

  The man took two steps towards Kyle, and lunged at him with the dagger.

  Kyle, with this lightning fast reflexes, easily sidestepped, grabbed the man’s wrist, and pulled it back in one motion, breaking his arm in half. The man screamed, but before he could finish, Kyle snatched the dagger from his hands and in the same motion, slashed his throat. He let the dead body fall limp to the street.

  Kyle looked down at the dagger, an intricate little thing with an ivory handle, and nodded. It wasn’t half bad. He tucked into his belt and wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. He breathed deeply, and, finally content, walked down the alleyway and back onto the street.

  Oh, how he had missed Rome.

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  CHAPTER THREE

  Caitlin walked with the priest down the aisle of the church, as he finished barring the front door and sealing off all the other entrances. The sun had set, and he lit torches as he went, gradually lighting its vast rooms.

  Caitlin looked up and noticed all of the huge crosses, and wondered why she felt so at peace here. Weren’t vampires supposed to be afraid of churches? Of crosses? She remembered the White Coven’s home in the New York Cloisters, and the crosses that had lined the walls. Caleb had told her that certain vampire races embraced churches. He had launched into a long monologue about the history of the vampire race and its relationship with Christianity, but she hadn’t listened closely at the time, too enamored of him. Now, she wished she’d had.

  The vampire priest led Caitlin through a side door, and Caitlin found herself descending a flight of stone steps. They walked down an arched, medieval passageway, and he continued to light torches as he went.

  “I don’t think they’ll be back,” he said, locking another entrance as he went. “They’ll comb the countryside for you, and when they don’t find you, go back to their homes. That’s what they always do.”

  Caitlin felt safe here, and she was so grateful for this man’s help. She wondered why he had helped her, why he had put his life on the line for her.

  “Because I’m of your kind,” he said, turning and looking right at her, his piercing blue eyes boring through her.

  Caitlin always forgot how easily vampires could read each other’s minds. But for a moment, she had forgotten that he was one of hers.

  “Not all of us fear churches,” he said, answering her thoughts again. “You know that our race is splintered. Our kind—the benevolent kind—need churches. We thrive in them.”

  As they turned down another corridor, down another small flight of steps, Caitlin wondered where he was leading them. So many questions raced through her mind, she didn’t know what to ask him first.

  “Where am I?” she asked, and realized, as she did, that it was the first thing she’d said to him since they’d met. All her questions came pouring out in a rush. “What country am I in? What year is it?”

  He smiled as they walked, the age lines bunching up in his face. He was a short, frail man, with white hair, clean-shaven, and a grandfatherly face. He wore the elaborate garments of a priest, and even for a vampire, he looked very old. She wondered how many centuries he’d been on this earth.

  She felt kindness and warmth radiate from him, and felt very at peace around him.

  “So many questions,” he finally said, with a smile. “I understand. It is a lot for you. Well, to begin with, you are in Umbria. In the small town of Assisi.”

  She wracked her brain, trying to figure out where that was.

  “Italy?” she asked.

  “In the future, yes, this region will be a part of a country called Italy,” he said, “but not now. We are still independent. Remember,” he smiled, “you are no longer in the 21st century—as you may have guessed from the dress and behavior of those villagers.”

  “What year is it?” Caitlin asked quietly, almost afraid to know the answer. Her heart beat faster.

  “You are in the 18th century,” he answered. “To be more precise: the year 1790.”

  1790. Assisi. Umbria. Italy.

  The thought of it overwhelmed her. It all felt surreal, as if she were in a dream. She could hardly believe this was really happening, that she was really, actually, here, in this time and place. That time travel really worked.

  She also felt a bit relieved: of all the times and places she could have landed, Italy in 1790 didn’t sound too foreboding. It wasn’t like landing in prehistoric times.

  “Why were those people trying to kill me? And who are you?”

  “Despite all of our advances, this is still a somewhat primitive and superstitious time,” he said.

  “Even in this age of luxury and decadence, alas, there are still scores of commoners who live very much in fear of us.

  “You see, the small mountain village of Assisi has always been a stronghold for our kind. It is frequented by vampires, and always has been. Our kind of vampire only feed on their livestock. Still, over time, the villagers begin to take notice.

  “Sometimes they’ll spot one of us. And when they do, the situation becomes intolerable. So every now and again, we let them bury us. We let them go through their silly little human rituals, let them feel as if they’ve gotten rid of us. And when they’re not looking, we simply rise again and return back to our lives.

  “But sometimes, a vampire rises back too soon, or is seen rising back, and then there comes the mob. It will blow over. These things always do. It brings unwanted attention to our kind, but only temporarily.”

  “I’m sorry,” Caitlin said, feeling badly.

  “Don’t worry,” he said, “This was your first time travel. You couldn’t control it. It takes some getting used to. Even the best of us can’t control re-surfacing very well. It’s always hard to say exactly when or where we’ll end up. You did fine,” he said, gently placing a hand on her wrist.

  They walked down another corridor, this one with low, vaulted ceilings.

  “Besides, you didn’t do all that bad,” he added. “After all, you knew enough to come here.”

  Caitlin remembered spotting the church as she’d sprinted through the field.

  “But it just seemed like the logical place to go,” she answered. “It was the first building I saw, and it seemed li
ke a fortress.”

  He smiled, shaking his head. “There is no such thing as coincidence in the vampire world,” he said. “Everything is destined. A building that seems secure to you might seem frail to someone else.

  No, you chose this spot for a reason. A very specific reason. And you were led to me.”

  “But you’re a priest.”

  He shook his head slightly. “You’re still very young, and you still have a lot to learn. We have our own religion, our own creed. It is not very different from that of the church. One can be a vampire and still involved in religious life. Especially our type of vampire,” he said. “I even help the humans in their daily spiritual life. After all, I have the benefit and wisdom of thousands of years on this planet—unlike human priests. Luckily, the humans don’t know I am not of their kind. For all they know, I am the town priest, and always have been.”

  Caitlin’s mind spun, as she tried to reconcile it all. The image of a vampire priest seemed so paradoxical to her. The notion of a vampire religion, of its working within the church…it all seemed so strange.

  As fascinating as all of this was, what she really wanted to know was not about vampires, or churches, or religion. She wanted to know about Caleb. Had he survived the trip? Was he alive?

  Where was he?

  And she wanted desperately to know about their child. Was she still pregnant? Had the baby survived?

  She thought these questions very strongly, and hoped the priest would pick them up, and answer her back.