The Ruby

by R. M. Getsee

  That hope was quickly extinguished when a bunch of hooded figures marched out behind them, shutting the door to freedom once again.

  “What the hell is happening?” Emi was the first to speak up as she surveyed her surroundings.

  The shadow/Athena and shadow/Carlisle laughed again. “Hell is a pretty accurate term.”

  “Okay that’s pretty creepy, and I can tell that you’re both secret bad guys from how you guys look perfectly comfortable at the fact we just got attacked by a bunch of Elementals.”

  The figures under the hoods laughed in a creepy familiar tone as well.

  I was not surprised when they threw back their hoods and revealed black eyes that mirrored the growing black in the other two, these guys however had almost no whites left, obviously not needing to keep their hosts in control until a certain time.

  “Wow you take the creepy to a whole new level don’t you?” Emi tried to sound tough but she visibly paled and stepped into Jared for support when they looked at her.

  “You’re just in time.” Shadow/Athena spoke on her own as she stepped forward. “You’re about to see history, the death of the Ruby.”

  I took a breath, trying to concentrate on the current running through me, just like Mr. Aldridge had shown me, really hoping he wasn’t also one of the shadow creatures.

  I felt a bunch of threads inside my body, singing with electrical energy, all connected to what felt like a molten chore of power and I grabbed onto one, hanging on for dear life as the knife slashed out.

  I ducked with a millisecond to spare, feeling the knife slice through a small chunk of hair that had been unravelled from my hairstyle and had fallen slower than the rest of my body, a casualty of the wickedly sharp blade.

  The knife slashed again barely giving me time to recover, even with my heightened reflexes.

  At the third attempt I jumped back and tried to kick out my leg like I had when I had been fighting with Drake, but my long dress was too tight and instead of sweeping shadow/Athena’s legs out from under her, I myself wobbled and fell back against the hard concrete ground.

  The roof was a lot less kind to me than the soft mats in the gym and as my head smashed down I saw stars, and I lay there for a moment, stunned.

  The knife came down and I barely twisted away.

  I punched upward into my opponents solar plexus as hard as I could and I was rewarded with a hiss of pain and a loud crack.

  The aim of next plunge of the knife was off by a lot and just grazed my thigh, I barley felt the knife and as I moved away I heard a sickening rip as my dress was torn from mid-thigh to my knee.

  Anger surged through me and I grabbed both sides of the fabric and pulled, tearing it all down and giving me more mobility. I jumped up from where I was laying I threw a right hook at shadow/Athena and kicked out, throwing her back.

  Sounds around me came into focus and I looked around to see all of my friends and family engaging in their own opponent, Roman was fighting Mr. Carlisle expertly and my breath caught painfully as I remembered what had happened.

  That small distraction was enough. Shadow/Athena did what I had failed to do the first time and threw a roundhouse kick, sweeping my legs out from underneath me.

  I groaned as my head hit the hard wall beside the door and I slumped to the ground, dazed as I felt my shoulder shatter on impact.

  I saw the flash of silver and heard a blood curdling scream before I realized that it was me screaming out in pain as the knife was plunged into my felt my eyes roll back in my skull.

  Chapter Twenty Five

  I stood once again in the empty field that I had first witnessed the Ancient’s final meeting, where they had given the human their memories. The human I now knew to be Romans ancestor.

  “It’s peaceful here isn’t it?” A voice spoke from behind me.

  I whirled around to see Osiris standing there, looking out and admiring the view before him.

  “Okay, another vision.” I said as I started to look around.

  “What are you looking for child?” Osiris asked in confusion.

  “I’m looking for the others so I can learn something from seeing the past; I would ask you but…..” I looked at him and finished slowly. “…But you can’t see or hear me.”

  He smiled and looked straight at me. “I can’t?”

  “How is this possible?” I asked.

  “Ah this is the questions I promised to answer, alright then.” I stared at him, dumbfounded, I was pretty sure he was making fun of me.

  “Sweet child I can see and hear you fine, although my past self, when you’re looking into events that have already come to pass, cannot.”

  “So why can you see me now?” I was thoroughly confused at this point, and I couldn’t remember how I had even got here in the first place.

  “Well,” he said. “I’m not my past self, and I have been watching over you since you were born.”

  “Who are you?” I asked him. “Why do I feel such a connection to you?”

  “Because,” He smiled. “I am the Ancient, Osiris, the first vampire in existence and the original vessel for the power of the Ruby.”

  I let out a small gasp. “So you had my power? What happened to you? What’s going to happen to me?” now that I had found someone who had the ability to answer my questions but didn’t want to kill me I couldn’t get myself to shut up.

  “Patience child.” He said. “Time is short and regretfully I cannot answer all of your questions yet, some things you will have to find out on your own, other things I can only answer when the time comes.

  “You already saw what happened to me and the others, we failed in our mission to find you, because we did not realize you had to be made by us, we grew greedy and had to make our children forget about each other to save them and the humans alike. There are four other supernatural races, one girl out of each of them will have powers similar, yet different to yours, which you must locate before the Jet breaks free of his chains, there are twenty chains that hold him in the plane he created and he has already broken three.”

  I looked down mournfully as memories of how I got here flew through my mind. “I know, but he won’t need much more time, he has amassed followers who have found a way to free him quicker, by killing me, and I think they may have already succeeded in that.”

  “I am aware of the event leading up to this meeting, but don’t worry it will not work, killing any of the gems will not free him, though the power finally being let free did start the process.” He said sadly.

  “So it’s my fault?” I felt tears pricking my eyes and I cursed internally, here I was meeting one of the most powerful entities ever made and I was blubbering like a little girl. “I let the power out and now I doomed the rest because I couldn’t even stop his cult.”

  “No child it is not your fault.” Osiris had an emotion in his eyes that I had never seen. “The power cannot be suppressed when it has been awoken and you have not yet been defeated.”

  “But I have been. The prophecy says there has to be five with the power to defeat him. I’m lying on a rooftop with a ten inch knife in my stomach, I lost. I’m going to die. I failed everyone.” I batted the tears that fell away angrily as I looked to him.

  “Alas, you final question, perhaps the hardest one of all, what will happen to you?” he said. “Well that cannot be answered by anyone but you. You have to decide now, whether you want to give up and let go, you will die on the roof surrounded by your friends, or you can decide to keep fighting, use the power within you and survive, fight till the final battle and defeat the Jet like it is your destiny to do.”

  “How can I do it?” I asked. “Tell me and I will. I need to see this through to the end.”

  Osiris smiled sadly. “Just close your eyes, feel the power and breath. You will know what to do.”

  I nodded and did what he said. I listened to the breeze of the clearing as I searched for my power, until I could hear more sounds on the wind.

  I could
hear Emi screaming my name, my friends and family telling me to wake up and the sounds of fighting going on around me.

  I quickly opened my eyes, wanting him to answer one more thing. “Before I go, why are our eyes the same?”

  Osiris let out a belting laugh that vibrated in my bones and filled me with an unexplainable sense of joy.

  “I lived on earth for centuries as an immortal creature, I took many lovers and had many children, every vampire is loosely descended from me, but there was one human, the first I loved deeply, the first to bear a child with me, Lyanna, we had the most beautiful daughter, she was special, she aged slowly, lived for millennia, before she had a child and started to age with her family. My most precious daughter, Nyssa.”

  I gasped. “My mother’s name is Nyssa. Does that mean…?” I trailed off, almost unable to believe it.

  “Yes Alex, you are my granddaughter, a direct, pure descendant from the first vampire born on earth. That is why we look alike, though your mother does look more like Lyanna.”

  I felt a rush of joy, and confusion as to why my mother did not tell me sooner.

  “Will I ever see you again?”

  My grandfather smiled. “Count on it.”

  With that I closed my eyes and grabbed on once again to the chords nearest my chore of power. I felt a pulling sensation and a sharp pain in my abdomen as I opened my eyes.

  My friends were still fighting the elementals to a draw and shadow/Athena was standing over me. “Well,” she said, seeing my try to stand up. “You’re tougher to kill than you look.”

  “You have no idea.” I said as I grabbed the hilt of the blade. I gritted my teeth against the pain, grunting as I slowly pulled, sliding the blade free inch by painful inch, trying not to pass out as I felt the cold metal slice through more of my flesh.

  Finally it slid out and I concentrated on the wound that was now pooling with my own blood. Cupping my hand over it I poured power into it, speeding my healing along until I could feel my flesh knit together, there was only a red welt on my skin when I was finished.

  My collar bone was somehow already healed, though I was pretty sure that a certain ghostly grandpa had something to do with that.

  “That’s impossible.” Athena said in shock, everyone had stopped fighting and were staring at me looking mystified at what I was doing as I stood up.

  “All of you,” I spoke; I could hear my power almost like a second voice behind my own. There was pure energy pumping into my veins, making my hair undulate and creating a soft red glow around me, a ruby glow.

  “You are the shadows of the Jet nothing more than an echo of his power, I am the direct descendant of Osiris, the Ruby, the first vampire in creation, you will not win tonight, flee now and you will not be harmed until the final battle.”

  The shadow/Athena lunged at me once again and I ducked the right hook that she aimed for my face. I landed a punch to her stomach that left her stumbling back slightly. She hissed, baring her teeth in a grimace and her skin rippled, as if the shadowy entity was moving around inside of her. She lifted a hand and I noticed that an inky darkness leaked out of it.

  A dagger about eight inches long formed out of the coiling darkness and she once again threw herself towards me, swiping the blade in front of her. I laughed as I avoided each of her attempts to cut me, raining blows down on her.

  I felt the now familiar sensation of my blood heating up as I channelled my fire through my hands, the flames pouring out and circling her, trapping her in their depths.

  The shadows possessing the elementals fighting my friends looked at me once, before begrudgingly departing in terror, their host collapsing without their power to hold them up.

  “Cowards!” shadow/Athena shouted, trying to advance on me once again, before being pushed back by the fire. “You are nothing compared to my masters power, nothing, you will exhaust your energy soon, and when you do I will be there to take you down.”

  I let forth a stream of power straight at her.

  There was a blood curdling scream and then it too departed, leaving Mr. Carlisle and Athena to slump on the ground, unconscious.

  There was a beat of silence, then everyone was around me, Emi grabbed me up into a tight hug screaming, Jared was next, enveloping us both in his long arms, Roman stayed a little distance away, and I nodded my thanks, I was coming down from a large power release and I really did not need him to remind me of my confused feeling towards him in the aftermath of what had happened. I definitely needed time and space from that. And about a month in my warm soft be to relax.

  “You did it Alex,” Emi screamed in excitement.

  “That was freaking awesome” Aiden chorused.

  “You saved us.” Rhea looked both guilty and extremely happy, as if finally realizing that what she and Torah had been doing was unfair and finally looking at her sister with a shocked respect.

  Jared was just speechless. I just basked in that moment of victory, relishing that I had given myself hope.

  *********

  Mr. Aldridge just looked at the carnage of what happened as their story sunk in. after a few moments of celebration.

  I had to give a brief explanation to the rest of the group about what had been going on and we had to work out a cover story to explain what had happened on the roof to authority figures.

  What we had told them was that a bunch of Elementals had decided to crash homecoming in the hopes of recruiting the promising students that Mr. Carlisle suggested, and when we did not agree, they decided to take care of us rather than having Carlisle’s cover blown.

  Rhea and Torah were both pretty shaken up. I was pleased to see that Rhea was sitting by Aiden, while Torah was just staring blankly at the shell of her best friend, in a daze that most of their relationship had been a trick so the shadows could get information out of her about me.

  Emi and I were standing a little off from the group as I explained what had happened while Emi wasn’t there and while I had been unconscious.

  “I can’t believe you went through all that and I wasn’t there for you.” Emi said mournfully as she glared at Roman.

  “It's alright, you couldn’t have known, please don’t blame yourself.” I still had the knife in my hand, I couldn’t put it down, because when I did everything would be real and I would have to process what had happened.

  “When I saw you lying on the ground,” Emi had tears in her big blue eyes. “Alex, it was the most terrifying thing I have ever been through. I thought I lost you”

  “Not going to happen. I’m super vamp remember? Nothing can get me down for long.”

  We both laughed quietly, embracing each other.

  I did not see Torah quietly rise from the ground.

  I heard a crunch and a rush of footsteps behind me and I caught the glint of silver reflected in Emi’s horrified eyes before my friend twisted my around, switching places with me.

  I saw Emi’s eyes widen and she gasped in pain, slumping forward onto me suddenly.

  I struggled to stop my knees buckling stumbling under the sudden surge of dead weight and saw my sister standing behind Emi, her eyes full of hatred, her hand wrapped around the hilt of a silver blade matching the one Athena had stabbed me with.

  The matching blade that was now hilt deep in Emi’s back.

  Chapter Twenty Six

  The room has never looked so big, I thought as I looked around my bedroom, trying to decide on what I should bring.

  As I grabbed spare changes of clothes and underwear from my drawers and threw them onto the bed sheets I thought back to the aftermath of the fight.

  Torah wasn’t making any sense as Mr. Aldridge grabbed her, trying to hold her back, screaming about how I had to die, still slashing the blood stained knife around in the air, trying to take a piece me with her.

  I shuddered slightly at the memory of the knife, and how the sharp blade had glistened in the dim moon light as it dripped with Emi’s blood.

  I remembered just feeling numb, dr
opping down to my knees beside my friends limp form as Jared shouted, searching for a pulse.

  All I heard was the sharp ringing in my ears, as I looked at Emi’s pale, pale face, it took Jared shaking me so hard it felt as if my bones rattled for me to even look up, and even longer for what he was saying sink in.

  “She’s alive, I can feel her pulse, it’s weak but she’s alive. Alex,” He said in desperation, grabbing my face in his hands and tearing my gaze away from Emi. “Listen to me; we have to get her help. She’s alive.”

  Jared gathered her up in his arms and ran; Roman grabbed my hand, pulling me to my feet.

  “I know you don’t want me around now but for Emi, you have to trust me now.” His deep blue eyes were so full of concern, so much like my friends, that I had just allowed him to pull me along like a rag doll.

  I sat down heavily on my bed, the springs creaking softly as tears finally spilled out. I felt like with every battle I won, there was a war that I was about to lose. I absentmindedly started folding the clothes I had pulled out.

  We had rushed to the hospital; I was still numb with shock.

  As we pulled into the underground parking I heard Romans voice, and turned to look at him, he was talking quickly on his cell phone to someone but I was finding it hard to focus on what he was saying, my eyes continued to drift towards the back seat were Jared was clutching Emi tightly, talking to her, trying to keep her awake as she drifted in and out of consciousness.

  A couple of paramedics met us at the entrance with a gurney for Emi and as soon as she was strapped to the brightly colored board they wheeled her inside quickly.

  A pretty female vampire met us inside and started shouting orders at the two of them while a nurse took my arm and guided me and the others into the waiting room.

  I looked around my bedroom, trying to think of anything else that I would need to bring with me as I finally started to feel the aftermath of the events.

  They had wheeled Emi into surgery and we had waited for hours to hear anything, Jared just sitting there, his face in his hands and Roman pacing the halls until he decided that we all needed coffee.