At first I thought I was asleep, or imagining things, or just really fatigued and starting to day-dream about random, oddly terrifying woman sneaking up on me and talking to me for no reason.
Once I put it in those terms to myself, my ideas sort of went out the window.
Then I realised that whatever was happening, no-one else nearby was aware. Or even moving. They were just...fixed in place.
“Um...who are you?” I asked tentatively, and the women clicked her tongue.
“That is a question with a very large number of answers, and I’m afraid I haven’t got time to go into all of them. I could say I was your mother, of sorts, but that wouldn’t exactly be accurate. Still, it’s the best you’ll get for now.”
I looked at the peculiar woman, then back at the people around me. All of them, just...stuck, as if someone had paused the rest of the universe.
“Oh, don’t mind them,” the woman told me, and only then did I notice the strangeness in her voice. She had a strong voice, commanding and authoritative, but beneath that was a whispered, echoing cadence that spoke of something ethereal.
“No, they’re fine,” she told me, “we’re just...between the moments, so to speak. We’re in that space between one day and the next, that tiniest of seconds that kills yesterday and gives birth to tomorrow. We are neither here nor there right now, and once I’m gone it will all carry on as normal.”
“But why-”
“Just listen, my darling. I’ve been looking for you. Well, not you personally, but the person with your particular talents. Look, it’s all very complicated, I’ll explain when I’m not dicing time into croutons. You just need to know that I have a plan for you, that Sharriana’s idea was ambitious but limited by mortal thinking.”
“She was nearly four thousand years old,” I told the mysterious woman, feeling deeply unsettled in her presence.
“Oh trust me,” she said with a grim smile, exposing her own quite large canines, “for me, that’s still mortal.”
“But what’s-”
“Look, I have to go for now, but don’t worry my sweet - I’ll be in touch.”
She stood up and leaned over me, kissing me on the forehead before bidding me goodbye.
“But I didn’t even get-”
“-Your name.”
“What’s that, boss?” Kelly asked, looking up from a conversation with one of her team.
I’d been about to reply when I retched suddenly, accidentally inhaling the stinging chemical reek of something I couldn’t place.
“Can you guys not smell that?” I asked, looking at Kelly’s troops, and they shook their heads in bemusement.
“Fuck’s sake,” Lorelei muttered beside me, her nose twitching in disgust. “Someone needs to change their diet.”
Well, at least I wasn’t the only one who noticed the stench then.
Thoughts of the strange encounter plagued me all the way back to the Oxford base, but I kept it quiet - those around me would think I was going mad, and I didn’t want Lorelei to think I was imagining other women while I was in a relationship with her.
We would’ve been waiting until the evening to return to the fortress, but I used my authority to get us onto an earlier flight - the urgency of sifting through the information we had over-ruled the scheduled flights.
As soon as we landed back in Germany, Lori and I returned to our separate rooms to get changed and shower, and I instantly felt a little lost without her presence. In all fairness, we’d been practically in each other’s pockets since we decided to give our relationship a shot, so the time alone would be healthy.
A text message from her informed me she was heading to Ops - Kalin had emailed her the sound file she requested, and she wanted to get to work on trying to translate it. I asked her to copy the file to me, so that I could see if Master Deans could make anything of it.
Thinking of our aged Master of Records reminded me that I needed to return the books I borrowed previously, and I grabbed them as I left my room to visit the old man.
Lori’s email reached me just a few moments before I got to the records hall, and Master Deans was still there, moving about the bookcases with an agility that belied his age.
He paused as he spotted me entering, squinting briefly before he recognised me.
“Ah! Afternoon, young man!” He called, his voice carrying easily in the echoing hall. “How goes the leadership?” He cackled at his own wit, before being bested by a bout of coughing. I waited until he’d finished before replying.
“It’s fine thanks, Master Deans,” I told him, and gestured with the books. “I brought these back.”
“Grand, grand,” he rasped, patting his chest as if to clear something. “Just leave them on the desk over there, lad, my boy will see to ‘em. Were they any good?”
“Exactly what I needed, thank you,” I told him with a smile. “I managed to get the Selano family disgrace overturned - their name is clear again.”
Master Deans beamed at me, exposing an array of yellowed teeth.
“’Bout time someone used this knowledge for a decent purpose. Glad it served you well enough. Now I know you didn’t come down here just to banter with a daft old bugger like me, so what can I do for you today?”
“I’ve encountered a language I didn’t recognise,” I explained. “I thought with your advanced knowledge you might be able to shed some light on it.”
Master Deans gave a wheezing laugh again, patting my shoulder weakly.
“Butterin’ me up won’t get you anywhere, boy,” he said with a smile. “Anyways, can’t do much without hearing it, so unless you got a recording of it-”
“I have actually,” I told him, and pulled my phone out. He waited patiently while I found the file, turned the volume up and set it to play.
After a couple of seconds, the girl’s rapid whispering emerged from my phone’s speakers, and I suddenly realised it sounded like the whispers I heard when my mysterious visitor spoke.
As soon as he heard it, Master Deans flinched as if he’d been struck, his face draining of all colour. I instantly stopped the recording, concerned for his health as he staggered away from the sound.
“Master Deans, what-”
“Where did you hear that, boy?” he demanded, his body shuddering.
“Um...there was a girl at Oxford who had been turned, and that’s all she was muttering.”
“Black eyes, blood dark as the night? Raving like a mad thing?” I was becoming extremely worried. Master Deans was not normally so shaken.
“Y-yes, that’s right, but what...what is it? Why is this so problematic?”
The old man leaned against one of the massive bookcases for a moment, recovering his composure before he answered.
“It’s an ill omen, boy. Something very bad is coming back, and what it will want is anybody’s guess. I’ll...I’ll try and find a book that will explain it better. Go now, I’ll be in touch if I find it.”
I gave him a shallow bow of thanks and made my way back to the office, letting Lorelei know that I’d be there if she needed me. I figured I’d inform her of what had happened when I next spoke to her in person.
I entered the office and strode over to my computer, switching it on as I dropped into my chair. I leaned my head back, trying to piece everything together in my head. It was all a little too much to comprehend properly, and that bothered me.
“You move around a lot, don’t you?”
I snapped upright again, to see the mysterious woman sat in Lorelei’s chair. Her appearance hadn’t changed at all, but she was still unnerving.
Especially since she appeared without warning.
“I have to say, it’s a mite annoying,” she continued, ignoring my surprise. “I’ll have to find a better way of keeping track of you.”
“Who the hell are you?” I demanded of her, and she looked at me as if I was stupid.
“I told you before who I was,” she said politely, “if you can’t accept that, it isn’t my
fault.”
“My mother died nearly four years ago.”
“I’m aware of that.” I got the impression she was a woman of little patience, and my apparent idiocy was grating on her nerves. “I told you I was your mother ‘of sorts’. Do try and listen.”
“And what does that even mean? What do you want with me? Why are you following me around?”
In an instant she had left Lorelei’s chair and appeared in front of me, sat on the edge of my desk. Only a smoky black trail showed that she’d even moved at all.
She pressed a quieting finger to my lips, leaning closer to me.
“Hush, my child,” she said softly. “All in good time. Now that I have found you, I can begin working on my other plans. I’m following you to...keep an eye on my investment, if you will.”
I swallowed nervously. I didn’t like how close she was to me, and I especially didn’t like the chemical scent emanating from her. I still couldn’t place it, but it was deeply unpleasant.
“You...you said before that...um...”
She raised an eyebrow in question, given away by the shift of her blindfold.
“You said before Sharriana was ‘ambitious but limited’, I think was what you said.”
She nodded, her curled hair bouncing as she did, flicking more of the unpleasant smell around.
“Yes, that was correct. What of it?”
“What did you mean?”
She seemed to think about that, weighing it up, possibly deciding what to tell me.
“She had a plan to make you a psychic weapon,” the woman told me, “this you already know, and this you achieved. But she looked in the wrong direction - always watching the future, never looking into the past, where the really interesting facts were.” She was grinning again, as if she was telling the world’s best joke.
“What facts?”
“Mainly, where your vampiric bloodline originated. I mean, they all originate from the same source, really, but some bloodlines - like yours - are closer to that source than others. It depends how many mortals it’s been through, and yours has not been through many at all, thus making your blood achingly close to the original.”
I looked at her, trying not to breathe in the noxious scent that seemed to follow her.
“What...what source?”
She grinned again, and a shiver ran down my spine. Grins like that were usually the last thing seen by mice before they were eaten. She allowed herself a laugh, and the whispers that accompanied her voice laughed with her. It was a sound to chill the blood.
“All in good time, my sweet. I should leave for now, I have so much work to do, but...a piece of advice.”
She fixed me with a glare, or would have done if I could see her eyes.
“Do not get in my way. You may be important to my plans, but I will rip your throat out if I have to.”
She placed a hand on my right cheek, stopping me from pulling away as she kissed my left. It was disconcerting, being shown affection immediately after being threatened.
“Until next time, my sweet. Do try to behave.”
She vanished again, leaving a faint black mist in her wake that dissipated quickly.
And again, that horrid stench that almost made me vomit, stinging my nose and making my eyes water.
Only a moment later Lorelei walked in, depositing some files on her desk before going back to close the door.
“Well, that was sodding useless,” she said, as she stormed back to her desk. “My software had no idea what that language was, neither did-”
She broke off as she looked over to me, and something about my appearance must have worried her. It probably didn’t help I was still trying not to throw up.
She rushed over to me, stroking my face tenderly as she tried to see if I was okay.
“Hon, are you okay? You look like shit,” she told me, somewhat unhelpfully. All I managed was to shake my head.
“Goddess, what is that stench?” Only the fact that she could smell it too stopped me from thinking I was crazy.
She helped me out of my chair and walked me over to the massive window. She opened it up and sat me on the low sill, stroking my back gently.
“There you go, Eyathehn,”, she told me. “Get a few lungfuls of fresh air in, clear your head.”
She moved away for a moment and I did as she suggested, instantly beginning to feel better. She returned a moment later with a small glass of water, and sat beside me for a moment.
“You alright, sweetheart?” she asked, and the more usual term of endearment sounded odd coming from her.
I decided that Lorelei was the one person I could trust more than anyone, and I owed it to her to be honest.
“No, hon, I’m not,” I told her slowly. “There is some weird shit going on, and it is really, really worrying.”
“Like what?”
I told her everything I’d come across so far - Master Deans’ strange reaction to the recording, the mysterious woman who had appeared to me twice now, repeatedly referring to herself as my ‘mother of sorts’.
“Do I have some competition?” Lorelei asked with a chuckle, and despite her attempt at humour I could tell she was genuinely worried about the idea.
I put my arm around her shoulders and pulled her close, kissing her softly.
“Not at all, Eyathehn,” I told her. “I’m entirely yours.”
“Too fucking right,” she told me, resting her head on my shoulder. “I’d hate to have to break your legs.”
There was a knock at the door just then, and Lorelei went to answer it. She held a brief discussion with the visitor, then sent them away again as soon as they’d spoken.
“Someone brought you a book, said you were expecting it?”
I held my hand out for it, and Lorelei passed it to me before sitting beside me again.
“This’ll be what Master Deans said he was going to try and find for me,” I told her, as I examined the book. It was old, faded and worn, any pattern it might once have had completely eroded by time and use. A small slip of paper was poking out of the top between the yellowed pages, and Lorelei told me that it was a relevant section that had been marked for me.
I opened the book at the marked point, and began to read through it.
“What’s it about?” Lorelei asked, noting the look of surprise on my face.
“It looks like some kind of...religious text, but I don’t remember us even having a religious arm.”
“We don’t, officially,” she explained. “They call themselves ‘the Children of the Firstborn’, worshipping some kind of idealised vision of the First Vampire. Bunch of fucking idiots if you ask me.”
I chuckled humourlessly.
“Don’t be so fast to dismiss it. Listen: ‘and she shall come again, to restore what was once before. She shall restore her children to their glory’ - and this is where it gets interesting - ‘and you shall know them by their signs - their eyes shall be as obsidian, their blood as liquid shadow, and they shall strike down the weak and re-forge their kingdom’.”
“Did you understand that?”
I nodded slowly.
“A little too much to sleep soundly. This strange woman who keeps showing up...she’s this ‘First Vampire,’ which explains why she keeps thinking of herself as my ‘mother’ - she’s the mother to all vampires. That girl we saw at Oxford...she’s just the start. The First is trying to recreate her original children, and give them reign over mortals again.”
“And once again, you’re in the middle.”
I sighed heavily. I was sick of it, I truly was. I never wanted any of this, and I had already been manipulated once before. That cost me my first wife, and any chance of living a normal existence. Now I was some kind of key to the First as well, and what she intended to do with me I couldn’t bear to contemplate.
“I can’t do this, Lori,” I told her quietly, hanging my head in defeat. “I’ve seen what happens when I get manipulated, and it seems like it’s a sure-fire way to lose tho
se I care about most. Just...you’re better off running now, hon. Just to be safe.”
There was a brief pause, before Lorelei punched me hard across the jaw, almost knocking me out of the window.
“Eshka denahn vakuhr!” she hissed at me, using a phrase which, while lacking any mortal equivalent, was extremely unpleasant and possibly one of the most heinous slurs you could ever utter to another vampire.
Lorelei held my jaw with her other hand, forcing me to look her in the eyes.
“You are a hundred kinds of idiot if you think I would ever leave you, and moreso if you expect me to leave you when your life is at stake. I told you I was in this for the long haul, and I fucking meant it - whatever happens, I am yours, at your side, until the end. Do you understand me, Deimos Black?”
I couldn’t take my eyes from those glittering emerald orbs, the emotion that burned within them. I nodded as much as I could, seeing the undeniable truth in those blazing depths.
“Yes, Eyathehn,” I whispered, and she released me only to pull me into a longing, passionate kiss.
“Don’t ever talk shit like that again, Deimos,” she told me as we parted, “because I mean it when I say I’m here to the end...but I also mean it when I say I will make your life hell if you talk like that again.”
I put my arms around her and held her close, kissing the side of her neck.
“I’m sorry hon, I am...I just don’t want to lose you.”
“Then let’s work on finding out how to stop this crazy bitch, okay?”
I let go of Lori, feeling closer to her than before, and thought about what we could do.
“Yeah, let’s do that,” I said, becoming more determined. “get in touch with George, let him know what we’ve found. That should at least give him a direction to look in for his research.”
“Good man. Anything else?”
“Yes,” I said, trying to work out a plan in my head. “Have my brother brought up to me.”
Of Angel's Blood (Chronicles of The Order Book 2) Page 11