And then Arianne released her unseen hold on me to clutch at her temples.
‘No!’ she screamed, running further into the forest.
I crawled towards Lilah, touching her arm and feeling a touch of warmth spread into her body. I saw the blood bites on her neck slowly close and the colour rise in her cheeks. As quick as the sun rose, it was covered by grey cloud.
Lilah
I woke to see Gabriel lying beside me. Nearby there was a pile of smoldering ash and the faint smell of sulphur. I remembered much of what happened. I had seen Arianne at the edge of the clearing and where she had run. I knew that Gabriel had healed me and it was my turn to return the favour. The other strigoi who had fallen, the one known as Pietro had gone. Perhaps to return to the castle to restore himself; he was not a young strigoi and would be another to soon go to ground.
I kissed Gabriel on the lips and breathed my health into him. I felt him stir beneath me and could almost see his dreams. Without wakefulness, his guard was low. I had never healed a strigoi but sensed that I was succeeding for I could feel his blood cooling and his burnt organs flood with fluid once more. But it was all I could manage. Already I felt nausea and must use whatever strength I had to follow Arianne and find my daughter.
I must leave you now, I whispered to Gabriel in my thoughts. You must repair and find me once again. I left him, his face ashen and his body stiff, appearing as if lying in a coffin.
Arianne was stricken although the nature of it could not be determined. Her malady was apparent in her heavy tracks, which otherwise should not have marked earth or snow. I wove between the trees and gusts of rain lashed my body.
I came to trees where there were no spring leaves, a spindly barren ground that seemed the most unlikely hiding place, but where mists swirled low on the earth. Arianne walked among these trees holding the tiny hand of my daughter, her hair flattened wet around her tiny face.
Oleander saw me at the same time. ‘Mama!’ she called, but without fear and in the back of my mind this plagued me.
Arianne turned briefly then continued to walk from me, leading Oleander away, who it seemed was not led with any force. She did not tear herself to run to me like I imagined she would. She trusted Arianne.
I ran tripping over the small, sharp bushes that were like traps beneath the low mist, stripping the skin from my shins. My mortal body was failing me, the weight of the morning upon me. I prayed silently to God to give me strength.
Oleander’s red skirt faded in and out of the mist and my line of sight, like a flag waving in the breezing. I stayed fixed to the flashes of red so as not to lose them but their steps were as fast as mine were slow.
They suddenly appeared like apparitions in front me: my old friend and my daughter and I wondered whether it was my mind deceiving me. I reached for Oleander through weeping, wretched whimpers fighting the desire to run to her, which could spell my death. I had seen what Arianne was capable of: the magic she had used – raising strength from the ground – was from my own notes.
‘Lilah, if you don’t stay away I will be forced to kill you,’ she said, though with some difficulty and her speech was slurred. ‘You must not follow.’
Arianne turned to leave once again
‘Please,’ I begged, slipping on the waxy earth and collapsing on my knees, my dress soiled and sodden. ‘Do not take my daughter!’
‘I have promised her to another,’ she said, as other shapes emerged behind her. ‘It is too late.’
Several soldiers on horseback stepped forward their faces hidden behind black armour. They carried weapons and at first I thought they meant to harm Arianne but she did not turn to face them. She had been expecting them.
Arianne lifted Oleander onto the back of one of the horses. She squirmed uneasily and looked to Arianne for support.
‘King Laszlo has been promised her, and him to me,’ she said. ‘I have allowed him the chance for strigoi gifts as well as your daughter so that he may harness her potentially powerful gifts. In exchange he will bestow on me the position as Queen of Hungary. Laszlo has already felt other benefits. He is even richer than before with gold from Lewis’s loot filling his own dungeon rooms.’
‘You would sacrifice my daughter and others for the sake of power?’ This was not the Arianne I had grown up with. This was someone who was diseased.
‘From what I have heard, he is loyal to no-one. He will betray you.’ I shouted above the rain. Laszlo had been in my dreams. He was nothing but a villain to his own people. They were two minds alike in their madness, but there would likely just be one winner at the end.
‘He knows what I am capable of. He would not dare.’
At this she grabbed her stomach and fell forward. Then in an unusual display she began waving her arms at the air around her.
‘Leave me,’ she shouted. I could see nothing above her. She continued shouting before one of the soldier’s hollered: ‘We should go!’
Arianne collapsed on the ground and I went to help her up but she shook my hand away and spat in my direction.
‘Arianne,’ I said. ‘We were friends once. I don’t know what has happened but I believe somewhere deep inside is still the girl who took care of me and so many others.’
‘That girl died a long time ago. That girl should never have been born. This is who I am,’ she said, but her voice was frail and she was pressing her temples so hard I thought she would crush her own skull. When she released her hands her face was now muddied grey. She stood up then and brushed down her damp crumpled skirts.
The soldiers were becoming impatient and the horses tapped at the ground uneasily.
‘If it is a witch’s craft which Laszlo wants then take my daughter to a safe place and let me go instead.’
‘I can’t Lilah,’ she said, though this time it was without the vehemence she had used before. ‘Goodbye!’
‘One more thing, please…’ I begged. ‘If you take my daughter promise me you will take care of her like you took care of me.’
Arianne, who was about to climb on to the horse behind the other soldier, stopped then and walked toward me. She took my hands in hers and looked into my face. Even dishevelled, her face smeared with earth from when she fell, she was still beautiful; possibly the most beautiful girl I had ever seen.
Something changed then. I saw the shift, the softening of expression. Her shoulders slumped, wearing something close to defeat, and replacing the arrogance she had previously carried on them. She closed her eyes and touched her forehead, the gesture so graceful. Memories of her kindness came flooding back.
When next she looked up I saw only sadness. ‘So much pain for nothing,’ she whispered. I went to embrace her but she drew back slightly.
‘Oleander,’ she called behind her. ‘Come and say goodbye to your mother.’
The soldier cursed before letting the girl down. Oleander approached me but no sooner had she walked several feet that the same soldier was engulfed in flame, and the other one was struck from his horse. From the shock on Arianne’s face this was not her misdeed. Gabriel stepped beside me.
Arianne and Gabriel faced each other locked in shared thoughts. I saw Arianne’s chest rise and fall with heavy breaths then moments later she broke the connection, her eyes closing.
‘I thought you’d never come, husband,’ said Arianne. ‘It is thanks to you that we all stand where we are now.’
‘I didn’t mean for any of this. If I’d known…’
‘What,’ she said. ‘You would have killed me. Perhaps if you loved me, things may have been different. I would have stayed with you if you’d asked me.’
Gabriel could not find the words to respond but there was no need. Arianne and I had both come upon the same realisation. Gabriel’s crime was that he was in love with the idea of love itself, something perhaps unattainable by a strigoi, and it would always be his folly. He was a dreamer and love-maker forever searching for something he could never truly feel himself.
In what c
an only be described as a macabre twist, Arianne moved to the other solider as he stood up shakily from the fall, only to bite down on his neck. He clutched at the air before his body went stiff in her arms.
Oleander watched curiously as if she had seen this all before. I grabbed tightly to her hand and pulled her towards me, and a sense of relief engulfed my chest.
Arianne returned to us and I could feel the heat rise in Gabriel’s body, ready for further battles.
‘My friends,’ she said, though it was without emotion and I saw that blood was seeping from her eyes.
‘You are sick,’ I said. ‘I can help you.’
‘Always so hopeful,’ she said, condescendingly. ‘I cannot be saved you poor ignorant girl. Nothing can remove the demons from my soul. I am dying. They are coming for me. The same demons made me powerful but it was in exchange for my soul. I did not know I was even making a pact. Lewis knew. It was always his intent to kill me but only after I had endured this torture.’
‘Arianne, you are just ill. I can find a way to cure you. I have read the books…’
‘It is too late for that,’ she said. ‘There is nothing left here for me. It is my destiny that I am to be dust, along with my dreams of being Queen. There is no future. I would say that in your foretelling you saw nothing of my fortune.’
‘You are not bad. It was the blood which confused you. You must come too. Together we can escape and be free. Remember the times at the monastery. Remember how happy you were there. We can find a way for you to find peace again.’
‘You were always so forgiving, Lilah. It will one day be your ruin,’ she said, her voice much softer now. ‘It was I who killed Sister Nora, pushing her through the window to punish her for what she did to you. I am a murderer! There is no going back to a past which no longer accepts me. I was already tainted before Gabriel found me.’
There was a rush through the trees, a lift in the wind.
‘They are coming…’
‘There is nothing there Arianne. It is all in your head.’
‘No, I can see them now.’ Arianne looked at the clearing sky, her eyes vacant. Her shoulders jerked backwards and her body arched. She screamed then in pain before crouching like a cat, her chin low to the ground, her eyes wild, and blood streaming down her face.
Gabriel stepped forward in front of us. He still did not trust her; her nature to play before her kill.
I put up my hand to stop him.
‘She is without conscience. I must kill her.’
‘No need, Gabriel,’ said Arianne. ‘I can finish this myself.’
Leaves swept from the trees from a sudden rush of wind, twirling them upwards toward the parting clouds.
‘To think I had a chance of being normal. Lilah,’ said Arianne, looking straight at me but no longer with hate. ‘Your admirer is right. I am bad and the only way to stop the evil is to destroy it.
‘I loved you most, Lilah. But I loved you so much I wanted to be you – to have your talent. You took it too much for granted, afraid of it, afraid of who you are. Such power is wasted. But it was never you I wanted to punish. Lewis, yes. Gabriel, yes. But never you.’
A wind had whipped up around her noisily, a strange whirlpool in the air. She rose off the ground her body twisting unnaturally as she wailed in pain.
‘Gabriel,’ I screamed above the wind. ‘Stop her!’
With one final howl, she vanished into a fireball. Her ashes were swept into the tail of the windstorm and disappeared into the early morning mist.
‘Forgive me,’ said Gabriel quietly.
And I knew what he meant. If he had not lured her to him for his own lust Arianne would have lived her life of charity still. I wanted to blame him but Arianne’s ambition played a large part in her own demise.
‘What has happened to her? Were there really forces that we could not see or feel?’
‘I don’t know. I can’t explain it. It was perhaps delirium which led to her self destruction.’
‘She had become strong for a reborn,’ I queried.
‘Strength born from secrets stolen from Lewis’s library. She also took souls of the innocent, Lilah. She abandoned all control, indiscriminately breathing in their life force: their spirits. That can make one powerful but too much can send us mad, as well from too much blood, especially if they are not born of such inheritance.’
I shuddered looking at the air around us hoping that it was her own self-destruction and not the work of something even a strigoi could not explain. As much as I wanted to believe that, I also knew things that Gabriel did not. The ancient books told of an evil far greater; of demon possession. Lewis, like many of the elders, was convinced that there were other unexplainable forces in a purgatory spirit world, jealous of those with earthly bodies.
Oleander ran to me and I folded her into my arms. She pulled away to observe us. She was not frightened or upset just calmly taking us both in, absorbing our connection.
‘My brave girl,’ I said unable to suppress the quiver in my voice. I smoothed her hair tenderly while she calmly pulled something from the folds in her skirt.
My stolen journal notes were revealed and I looked into Oleander’s unaffected smiling eyes. She was clearly pleased with herself and not traumatised by what she had been through. What had I bred? I wondered: this strange little creature afraid of nothing, and with such knowing. I marvelled at the union of myself and Lewis and just what force we may have created.
*
We were silent as we walked. I did not sense any danger from strigoi nearby; many searching for Arianne in Laszlo’s dominion. I wondered where Georgio had gone and how Lewis would retaliate. I sensed that Lewis would count his losses for the time being while he had no control of his body, but soon after his repair he would claim what was rightfully his: Oleander. Lewis would never forgive me for taking her away and he would surely spend whatever years he could to return his daughter to what he believed was her birthright.
‘You must never return here,’ said Gabriel.
Lewis had already told me of my fate had I not taken it into my own hands. I took a dried fig from my pocket that had prior been boiled with powerful herbs to remove both Oleander’s and my scents. Oleander was too hungry to notice its strange flavour.
‘You perhaps should take some,’ I said to Gabriel. But he shook his head. Gabriel may not have had the gifts to destroy his fellow kind but I knew he was skilled enough to disappear when he had need.
*
‘I cannot go with you. There are things I must do and you belong among humans.’
We stood at the border of the Kingdom of Hungary. Gabriel held me to him one more time. Oleander had woken from his shoulder rubbing her eyes. He put her down and whispered in her ear. I could hear him tell her to think of nice things whenever she thought of the castle. It was to give her good dreams and erase her recent bad memories, though I did not think she needed this magic.
‘What will happen to any strigoi who defected and who is captured?’
‘You don’t need to know,’ he said. ‘But they are of little consequence to Lewis in the end. He has enough supporters to keep the coven going. Some of which will be searching for you now I daresay.’
‘I don’t think so,’ I said. And I told him what I did and the fact that whoever touches Lewis to try and heal him will also be tainted and incapacitated for days.
Gabriel shook his head. ‘He knew you were clever but he underestimated you. It is good that I have been warned what you do to husbands. At least it will give me some time for my own goodbyes.’
And despite all that had happened I felt the urge to smile.
‘Goodbye. Take care. I will keep an eye on you,’ he said and he raised my hand to press upon his cool lips.
I smiled feeling such great tenderness but at that moment strangely nothing else. It was as if our time in Venice had never happened. The episode with Arianne had cured us temporarily of any desires.
‘Follow the pathway into the first
town. Ask for Josephine who sells the feathered charms. You will find temporary sanctuary there. She has her own witch’s tricks to keep you protected until you can find somewhere else safe to live.’
He still surprised me with his friendships of human and witch. ‘Another of your previous conquests?’ And this was asked without jealousy. He smiled but looked away. And I still felt none.
‘I love you, Lilah,’ he said. ‘I always will. Perhaps one day we will meet again.’
And then he was gone. I had loved Gabriel with every part of my body, heart and soul. But this alone could not sustain us. It was not in Gabriel’s nature to remain constant. I was meant to be with humans and he was meant to wander and travel. To have him beside me would be like caging a wolf. Though, this knowledge did not cure me of the emptiness inside or the sadness of our separation.
I looked through the trees hoping for another glimpse of him but there was none. We turned to the narrow pathway ahead to follow the tracks of a horse and cart towards a new future, while melancholy rested heavily on my shoulders. Sensing my mood, Oleander squeezed my hand to make me look at her. Her smile came from deep within her heart. I squeezed her hand to return the gesture.
Chapter 18
Lilah
Several years have passed since I came to this town. I stand at the market stall selling my herbs with Irene who is my faithful assistant. Only days after I left the castle she turned up with nothing but the clothes on her back. She made the escape while Lewis was incapacitated and the other strigoi were in disarray, afraid to make any decision on their own.
Gabriel had then taken Irene away in the night under their very noses. Because of our close friendship he did not believe she was safe there anymore. It was Irene who told me what followed. Gabriel had returned to the castle and made sure that Lewis was being cared for during his paralysis. Though while he appeared comatose it was likely he was fully aware of what was going on, his thoughts in turmoil. Gabriel put the other strigoi – who were unaware of his betrayal – to tasks sending them in all the wrong directions to find Oleander. During those days Claude returned to the castle and reported the slaughter at King Laszlo’s castle. Gabriel did not allow him to stay. He feared that Claude might be killed when Lewis awoke. Irene did not know where the boy had gone from there.
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