Never Show Fear

by Nicola Claire

I’m not sure I’m ready. I’m not sure I can control the blackness. I’m not sure this will end well for anyone.

  But if there is anyone I will stop running for it is Ellie.

  Hold on, Sis, I mentally vow, I’m coming.

  To Alain, I say, “I know where Zahra is.”

  * * *

  Zahra Bahar is the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. But it’s not a classical beauty. She is fierce. A warrior princess. A survivor.

  I also see her blackened soul, and it speaks to me.

  It is stunning in its starkness.

  “Are you just going to stare at her all night long?” Alain asks me, amusement in his voice.

  We’re watching from the shadow of a shop stoop across the courtyard of a small town. Zahra drinks tea in the window of a tea house. She is serene in her patience. The patience of a hunter knowing its prey approaches.

  I could watch her all night.

  “I’ll check the perimeter,” Alain says when I say nothing; just continue to stare at the woman who has haunted my dreams for two years now.

  I feel more than see Alain bleed into the shadows. In moments, I am alone.

  I fear it will be the last time I am ever alone again.

  I keep watching.

  Zahra drinks more tea.

  Norms go about their nightly rituals. Friends laugh and share stories. There’s a shifter to the north who hunts a meal. He hunts rabbit, so I consider him friendly. Vampires walk the street, but they’re not Mhachkay, and if they know the vampire who drinks tea in the window of a tea house is Mhachkay herself, they don’t react accordingly.

  Come to think of it; they probably don’t even realise she’s a vampire because she’s drinking tea and nibbling on a biscuit.

  Mhachkay are very different from their Darker siblings.

  I watch for a few more moments and then step out of the shadows. If Zahra is not aware I am here, then I will eat my stake in a heartbeat. Delaying this meeting only makes me appear weak.

  Never show fear.

  Even if it’s fear of the woman who entwines your soul with hers, and who threatens to entwine your heart along with it.

  I cross the courtyard, listening to the thoughts of those in the vicinity. A young girl is heartbroken her beau has left her. A young boy wants desperately to win the heartbroken heart of the young girl. They both don’t realise the beau who broke the heart of the young girl hankers after the young boy instead.

  The minds of mortals are very confusing.

  I feel Alain to the south, shifting through the shadows. He thinks of dinner; the blood of a young woman who appeals for a reason I can’t fathom until I realise she looks just like Ellie. I break off from his thoughts the moment he glazes her; her mind becoming enthralled with his whispered words.

  I don’t wish to know if he makes her think her name is Éliane or desires to hear an accent from her ‘ruby lips’ — his words, not mine — that is not her own.

  Alain is broken, and I cannot fix him.

  It hurts.

  I stretch my senses further afield even as my eyes are all for the Mhachkay witch in the light of a tea house window. If Zahra knows I approach, she doesn’t turn her head to acknowledge me.

  Perhaps she’s listening to my thoughts.

  I do not seek out hers.

  Instead, I rifle through the minds of all those close enough to pose a threat and come away in some cases disturbed but in most relieved. There are no threats apparent tonight.

  But still, my pace slows, my steps shorten. The tea house is close enough now that I can hear the beating hearts of the Norms within it.

  And hear hers, as well.

  Her hearts beat in tandem, but there is an echo that marks her as Mhachkay. Two hearts. Two souls. And although one is already mine, I find myself longing for the other.

  If I seek Zahra’s hearts, though, I must walk a path I’m not sure I’m ready for.

  Two hearts. Two souls. Two paths to take.

  I am what I am now, and there is no changing it. But I can choose to stay in the shadows and live a life of my own, or I can choose to step into the Light and walk beside this woman. To let the black of her soul steal into my heart once and for all.

  I tell myself I choose the latter path for Ellie when truth be told; I desperately hunger for something only Zahra can give me.

  Is it the entwining? I don’t know. But I’m not one to get caught up in the why’s of a thing. I am half-Nosferatin; my destiny always lay in the kindred-joining with a Nosferatu.

  There are some choices we do not get to make.

  I open the door to the tea house, and the sound of happy late-night cafe dwellers flows out to greet me. Warmth hits me, and for the first time in a long time, I realise I have been so very cold. A shiver runs through me as I step over the threshold into the welcoming lamp lights of the shop. The scent of coffee and tea and hot pastries greets me. I lick my lips, but my eyes are all for the vampire who sits in the window and now watches me approach.

  I don’t hesitate. Hesitation would be a weakness. I step forward as though this was always my plan. Two years is long enough to keep the woman waiting.

  I slide into the seat opposite her and reach for the still-steaming mug of tea she has prepared for me. It is thick and strong — Turkish tea — and yet we are still in Russia.

  I take a sip. The warmth of the cafe slips inside me.

  Or maybe it’s the fact the woman I have longed for, for so long now, finally sits opposite me.

  She doesn’t smile. I’m unsure if she ever smiles. I don’t know her well, if at all.

  But I see her heart. Her soul. I hear her thoughts, even if indistinct. I can’t find the courage to listen to them in full.

  “You took your time,” Zahra says, sipping her tea.

  “I had sights to see and places to go,” I tell her, sipping mine in turn.

  Our eyes are locked on each other. Nothing else exists but us and Turkish tea.

  “Did you find what you were looking for?” she asks me.

  “I found a good many things,” I say. “But it’s only now that I realise I’ve found what was missing.”

  She stares at me for a moment and then snorts. It’s loud, and several people turn to look at her. She doesn’t care. They’re beneath her attention.

  And yet, I have all of her attention on me.

  I feel ten feet tall.

  “You’re going to have to do better than that,” my Mhachkay Witch informs me.

  “All right,” I say, nodding my head; accepting the challenge willingly. “But let’s not rush things.” I’m enjoying myself too much already.

  “I’m not the one talking about missing me.”

  I smile, offering her a grin I haven’t used in two long years. She stares at me, and I can’t tell if the grin has any effect whatsoever on her or if she’s just humouring me.

  I’m going to go with the latter.

  This woman is stunning.

  But I’ve not stepped out of the shadows just for her.

  I haven’t even stepped out of the shadows for me, although I haven’t had this much fun since, well, ever it feels.

  I’ve stepped out of the shadows for Ellie.

  I place the teacup on the table’s surface and look Zahra in the eyes.

  Smoke swirls within their depths, and it calls to me.

  “Hakan and Ellie are in danger,” I say, not couching my words in the slightest.

  She stills. Vampire still. No breaths or heart beating.

  And I feel like I’ve come home.

  “I met Ekram,” I say and something black and sinister sweeps across her gaze.

  I still. I have no breaths or heartbeat.

  Zahra leans toward me; despite not inhaling, I can smell her signature scent; it makes me dizzy.

  “Tell me,” she says, voice pitched low so as not to carry, “that you killed him.”

  There is hurt there. Anger, too. So much anger. But it’s the hurt that chills me, that
cleaves my heart and soul in two.

  “No,” I admit, reluctantly, “but I intend to. Just as soon as we warn Hakan and Ellie.”

  She stares at me for a long time and then nods her head.

  “Give me your hand,” she instructs, holding hers out for me to grasp across the table’s surface.

  I want to. Oh, dear goddess, I want to grasp that hand and never let go.

  But Mhachkay can make portals, and I see the gleam in her eye, the one that tells me she has caught her prey and intends to take it home with her to mount above her fireplace.

  “My Kindred,” I say, and she huffs out a disgruntled breath.

  “You are a pain in my butt, Durand,” she gripes, revealing her successful acclimation into today’s society after centuries asleep in another time and place.

  But she doesn’t argue further; just stands, heads toward the door, and waits for me.

  I follow behind smiling.

  Outside, Alain waits. Zahra and my Kindred share a look I can’t decipher. I reach for Alain’s thoughts, still not sure I wish to hear hers just yet. I catch the last of a musing that alarms me, and then my hand is in Zahra’s, and Alain’s hand is on my shoulder like it has been many times before, and we’re walking through whatever portal the Mhachkay can create and stepping out into the courtyard of a castle.

  I turn to Alain, my temper blazing.

  Alain seems unprepared for my attack.

  Zahra shouts something as we go flying. My fangs graze his neck, the red of his eyes pierce like daggers into me. And then we’re tumbling and snapping, and hissing and biting, and I reach for my stake.

  “Stop!” a voice commands. And I know it. I feel it. It is home to me, also. “What the fuck?!” Ellie adds.

  We still. Both Alain and I slowly turn our heads toward my sister.

  I shouldn’t do it. Not when his thoughts have betrayed me so recently. But I do it anyway.

  Éliane, Alain’s voice whispers in his mind, in a tone of regret and as if his heart is breaking. Ma chérie bébé.

  He still loves her.

  Then why did he think Zahra was the most attractive woman he had ever met?

  * * *

  “I’m all for making a grand entrance, Luc,” Ellie says as she sits beside me. “But that was a little more dramatic than I’m used to seeing from you.”

  We’re sitting in the grand hall of the castle. It’s an old castle in Edirne, or Adrianople as the Mhachkay call it. It was their home long before they were imprisoned in sleep for the sins of their fathers against vampires as a whole.

  Papa has a deep-seated hatred for the Mhachkay, and yet he’s allowed their kind to return to society and become members of the Iunctio. He allowed his only daughter to be entwined with their new King.

  My head understands the politics of it. My heart is less understanding.

  I miss my sister.

  “I know Mama pulls a stake on Papa every now and then,” Ellie continues to say as we sit shoulder to shoulder beside an enormous fireplace. “But it’s all in good fun.” She looks at me. I stare at the flames in the hearth and not at her directly.

  I may have missed Ellie like a lost limb, but I can’t seem to face her.

  “You had your fangs in Alain’s neck,” Ellie murmurs. “Vampires do that when they fight to the death.”

  “Or for punishment,” I add.

  “Or during sex.”

  I feel my cheeks pink. My eyes automatically look for Zahra. But as soon as we arrived and Alain and I were separated, Zahra went off with Hakan; no doubt to warn him about Ekram and make Mhachkay battle plans together.

  At least it saved me the hassle of dealing with my sister’s mate.

  But it doesn’t stop me from being put out that Zahra was so keen to leave me.

  Two years and she drops my hand as soon as we arrive in the Mhachkay stronghold, as if that small contact was enough.

  I huff out a disgruntled breath, aware only now that I haven’t answered Ellie.

  “I take it the kindred-joining has been a strain,” Ellie says.

  Ours is not a normal kindred-joining. I was full of Dark when Alain tried to save me. He is a powerful vampire in his own right, but he was not powerful enough for that. My Dark consumed him. It consumed me. Our kindred-joining became something that’s a mockery to Nut, and all our goddess stands for.

  If it hadn’t been for Zahra, the Black Witch, entwining me, goddess alone knows what would have become of Alain and me. The Nosferatins in Paris were all set to end us. And that’s not even considering what we had been prepared to do to each other.

  Dark destroys.

  We’re no longer Dark. But we’re also not a normal kindred-joined pair. We’re different.

  Story of my life.

  “The joining’s fine,” I tell my twin.

  “Then what was with the fangs?”

  There’s no way I’m going to tell Ellie about reading Alain’s mind and getting so full of rage because he’d fleetingly been attracted to my Entwined; a vampire I haven’t even kissed yet.

  I scowl at nothing.

  Ellie sighs. “You know you can talk to me, don’t you, squirt?”

  I smile; Ellie’s intention, I think.

  “You’re the squirt,” I tell her. “I’m older than you.”

  “By all of three minutes.”

  “Still older. And wiser.”

  “And dorkier.”

  We start laughing. Tears fill Ellie’s eyes.

  “I’m OK, El,” I tell her a moment later, gripping her hand tightly.

  Ellie and I aren’t kindred-joined. We don’t need the contact. But we both crave it.

  “I’ve missed you,” she says, laying her head on my shoulder.

  “Me too,” I whisper back.

  We sit in silence for several minutes. The vampires in the Mhachkay castle go about their business. It looks like their business is making a huge feast to welcome Zahra home.

  My mind brushes those nearest. Some of which have thrown furtive looks my way.

  They’re curious to know why Zahra has been hunting me for so long. Why the Black Witch has shown such patience.

  Some of them are jealous of me; of the fact, I’ve taken Zahra from them for so many months.

  I fist my hands on my thighs and glare at them.

  “OK,” Ellie says, sitting upright. “You’re growling like Papa growls when someone pisses him off by looking at Mama the wrong way.”

  “There’s a particular growl he makes for that?” I ask.

  “Oh, hell, yes. And you’re doing it. Spill!”

  “Ellie,” I warn.

  “Two years, Luc. I said I’d give you one. I gave you two. Don’t think I couldn’t have chased down your stupid butt if I’d wanted to. I did it once before, and I could have easily done it again. But I gave you the time, I thought you needed. And now you’re back.”

  “I’m not sure we’re staying.”

  “Surely Zahra wants to stay for a while, at least.”

  “I mean Alain and me. We came to issue a warning. Maybe help if you need us. But then…I don’t know. It’s a big world, El. There’s lots to see.”

  Ellie says nothing for a long time.

  Then she surprises me. Of all the things she could say, she says, “Well, at least stay for dinner. You haven’t eaten until you’ve eaten a Mhachkay feast.”

  She stands up and stretches her arms above her head, arching her back as if it’s aching.

  And that’s when I see it.

  The rounding of her stomach.

  She’s pregnant.

  I stare at her belly for long seconds, until she lowers her arms and looks right at me.

  “Would you have told me?” I ask her, unable to look anywhere but at the evidence of her pregnancy.

  “Would you have felt obliged to stay if I had?” she asks me.

  My sister’s having a baby. Nosferatin can’t have kids without outside influence, like say, Nut’s blessing. And Nosferatu cert
ainly can’t either. Well, usually can’t. Mhachkay are born, not created, and Papa managed to conceive twins with Mama. But that was all our goddess’s doing.

  “Ellie,” I say, shaking my head.

  “She came in the middle of the night,” Ellie whispers. “She visited me in a dream. She told me our children would change the world. That one day, they would save humanity.”

  “Children,” I say. Plural.

  “We think it’s twins, Luc.”

  I look up at her and smile. I can’t help it. She offers a small smile in return.

  “Hell of a lot of responsibility to place on a couple of kids,” she tells me.

  I’m not going anywhere, I realise.

  Ellie is family. Her children will be as well.

  I don’t care about me. About Alain or Zahra. Or the fact that the smoke wants to consume me.

  None of it matters.

  But Ellie and the precious cargo she carries.

  Sometimes we rage against the night. Sometimes we fight and fight and fight to our last breath to stay free.

  And sometimes, it’s as easy as breathing to accept reality.

  I stand up and wrap my arms around my sister.

  “Save humanity, huh?” I whisper into her dreadlocks. “Thank the goddess they have an awesome uncle, then. One who is wicked good at the Black Arts.”

  I hear her crying then. Soft tears as her body shudders against mine. She tries to hide it. I smooth my hand down her long, twisted strands of hair, and curse myself.

  I’ve been so selfish. So self-centred. So lost to my own heartache.

  And all the while, my twin has been making new life.

  I hold her close. Relish the familiarity.

  When I open my eyes and stare across the grand hall, every single vampire has stilled and is watching us.

  Including Zahra and Hakan Bahar; the Black Witch and the Mhachkay King.

  * * *

  I sit next to Ellie for dinner. Hakan’s on her other side. Across from me is Alain. To my left is Zahra.

  Alain and I have not discussed my attack on him, but I know my Kindred is smarting.

  He doesn’t know why I charged like a crazy rhino.

  I think I’ll have to explain myself.

  But right now, he isn’t even thinking of Zahra. Zahra might as well not exist at all.