“Bring him to me,” said Chiara, pointing off to the distance, where Ari knew Chris was waiting.
Ari shot a worried look at Lea and for one wild moment, Ari though that Lea would refuse, but then she dropped her head and called out, “Chris, come and meet my gran.”
Chris appeared a moment later, looking from Ari and then to Lea; finally his eyes fell on Chiara.
“Pray tell,” said Chiara, “what possessed you to commission a wraith to bring you here?”
“He’s only half wraith,” Lea said weakly. “He’s a friend.”
Chiara stared at Chris with squinted eyes; it was clear from her expression that it didn’t matter that Chris was only part wraith; she didn’t trust him in the slightest.
“I might just wait back out-” Chris began to say, until Chiara reached for his hand and flipped it up so that she could read his palm also.
“Do not move wraith or I shall curse you into oblivion,” she said, straightening up.
Immediately there was an odd sense of power in the air, almost like the cackle of electricity. It caused the hairs on the back of Ari’s neck stand upright; clearly Chiara was a very powerful witch.
Chris gulped loudly, watching in terror as Chiara bent down to inspect his palm. She was squinting as she traced the grooves that ran up and down the insides of his fingers. Then her eyes widened, causing the tiny creases that surrounded them to disappear entirely. She rubbed furiously at the line trailing from Chris’s thumb to his wrist, as if not believing what she was seeing. Finally she dropped his hand, an odd bemused expression on her face.
“You are not evil,” she said, staring him straight in the face, just as she relaxed her stance; immediately Ari felt the hairs on the back of her neck fall down and the crackle of electricity die. “But you are capable of darkness… then again,” she added, looking at Ari with a perplexed expression on her face, “aren’t we all.”
“Gran,” said Lea, glancing across the road and then back at her grandmother’s house, “we need your help. We don’t have a lot of time. I know how you feel about wraiths… I feel the same, but Chris is different.”
“Yes, that much is obvious. Very well,” said Chiara, “come inside, all of you; I’ll make us a cuppa. Then you can tell me what this is all about.”
Chiara’s house was perfectly designed and decorated to counteract the freezing sea breeze and strong winds of Marblehead. The house was built from brick; it was so thick that the moment Chiara closed the front door, all remnants of traffic noise evaporated and warmth settled around Ari. But it wasn’t just the brick construction that kept the house warm; a large fireplace sat snugly in the corner of the living room, while many plush rugs lined the floors. There was a small veranda at the rear of the house, from which Ari thought it might be possible to get a glimpse of the ocean, though the wooden shutters were firmly closed against the chill outside.
Lea and Ari sat on a lush white couch that was covered by woollen cushions and many hand-knitted throws, while Chris stood near the window, using his fingers to prise open the shutters, so as to peer outside.
“Tea,” said Chiara, appearing a moment later, balancing a wooden tray, laden with many mugs.
After everyone had taken a cup, Chiara sat next to her granddaughter and reached for a packet of cigarettes and lit one. She was blowing out a large circle of smoke and staring at Ari without blinking.
“This is the girl you told me who was descended from Mary Grandor?” Chiara finally asked, looking at Ari. “And you have magic?”
Lea nodded and Ari said, “Yea. When I started being able to um, do weird things, I traced back my ancestors and found out that I was related to a girl called Mary Grandor who was burnt at the stake for practising witchcraft. I thought perhaps that I was a witch…”
Still staring at Ari, Lea’s gran took her by the hand and pulled her closer; a powerful stench of stale tobacco assaulted Ari’s nostrils and she curled her nose in response. At first Ari was thinking that the elderly lady wanted to shake hands with her, but it quickly became apparent that this was not the case. Ignoring the perturbed look on Ari’s face, Chiara turned Ari’s hand palm-upwards and uncurled her fingers, then used her own wrinkled hand to trace the lines in Ari’s skin, just as she had with Chris and Lea.
“And the wraith… he knows what you can do?” asked Chiara, though Ari had the feeling that Chiara already knew the answer to her question.
“Um, I have a name,” said Chris, but Chiara continued to stare at him until he finally answered her. “Yea, I know what Ari can do; I have been trying to help her get control of her powers.”
“You trust him?” asked Chiara.
“I trust Chris with my life,” Ari said.
The surprise on Chiara’s face vanished quickly and was replaced with a look of contemplation, as if she were wresting with something. Finally she sighed and released Ari’s hand.
“Tell me child,” said Chiara, “what is it that you can do?”
“She can stop time, see the future and burst into sunshine,” Lea said quickly.
Chiara’s eyes widened and Ari nodded in affirmation.
“I never thought I would live to see it,” said Chiara, her eyes wide as she contemplated Ari, “the coming of the Grandor descendant.”
“Huh?” Chris, Lea and Ari, all said together.
“It is an old legend, one which dates back to the birth of the immortals. The legend has morphed over time, so much so that few still believe in it. The story goes that the first witch was an immortal called Grandor; he created a powerful enchantment that would allow his bloodline to develop powers against the vampires. It was foretold that his descendants would bring about the end of vampirism.”
“Wait what?” said Ari; what did that mean?
“I have seen it in your palm, and from what you say you can do,” said Chiara, “you are a Grandor descendant and you have a dark road ahead of you, but there is light also… so much light. I see death and life are not balanced for you. There are things around you that you cannot control, and someone you love dearly who you should not.”
At these last words Ari jerked away from Chiara. Someone you love dearly who you should not; did Chiara mean Ragon?
“You’re in love with one?” said Chiara, taking a sudden gasp. “Yet you are not a source?”
“I’m… well…” Ari stuttered, uncertain of what to say.
“You are the Grandor descendent and you love that which you must destroy,” said Chiara, looking at Ari with an almost pitying expression.
“I know, right!” said Chris, and both Chiara and Ari blinked up at him.
“But why me?” said Ari, ignoring Chris’s snide remark and staring dumbstruck at Chiara. “How do you know for sure that I am… a Grandor descendant?”
Ari felt as if she were falling down a bottomless pit. How could it be her responsibility to kill vampires? She was just a girl and… and she was in love with Ragon. It felt cruel to have spent so long trying to work out why she could do the things she could, only now to realise that she must use her gifts to kill the very thing she loved most in the world. Ari’s head felt light; how could this be happening? But if she really was the antagonist to vampires, did that mean that she couldn’t be with Ragon? What other strange anti-vampiric powers did she have that would put him at risk?
“Did your parents not tell you anything of your destiny?” asked Chiara.
Ari closed her eyes, shaking her head as she said, “They were killed by the Ancients.”
“But how could the Ancients know that a Grandor line survived? Surely if they knew descendants lived on, they would have seen to its demise many decades ago,” said Chiara, her eyes wrinkled in confusion as she took a deep drag on her cigarette.
“I don’t know how they knew about me,” said Ari. “When I was a baby, Ragon rescued me and took me to an orphanage. It was only last year that the Ancients sent an assassin to finish me off.”
“Ragon?” asked Chiara.
&nbs
p; “He’s my boyfriend,” Ari admitted.
“I see; such an odd union. But perhaps that was always meant to be; destiny has a funny way of playing out. Extinction is not something the universe considers lightly,” said Chiara.
A thousand questions rung through Ari’s head, and though she desperately wanted to know more, she knew there was no time to ask them now. They had already wasted enough precious time, time which they did not have. Ari needed to know about the blood hunter curse, she needed to know how to reverse it. She had to save Sandra!
“Now,” said Chiara, blowing out a large puff of smoke, “why is my granddaughter allowing the Grandor descendant to fall in love with a vampire and be ferried around by a wraith?”
Ari took a fast gulp of her tea, wincing slightly as the burning liquid coursed down her throat.
“Gran,” said Lea, her voice a few octaves higher than normal, “you can’t say stuff like that. And… and I almost got Ariana killed when I stuck my nose into her relationship with Ragon. I basically handed her over to the Ancients.”
Chiara, who had just taken another puff of her cigarette, coughed loudly.
“What?” she sputtered, clutching her chest dramatically, her eyes wide and bulging.
“It’s ok,” said Ari, rushing to Lea’s defence. “Lea thought that I was Ragon’s source; she was just trying to protect me.”
“Yea,” said Chris, clearly wanting to be involved in the conversation, “but it turns out that Ari doesn’t need protection, not from blood suckers anyway.”
“What do you mean?” asked Chiara.
“She killed the Triad,” Chris said hurriedly.
“How?” asked Chiara, leaning in towards Ari.
Ari glanced across at Lea, hoping to portray a sense of urgency. They didn’t have time to play nice with Chiara and chit chat; they needed the witch’s help to reverse the blood hunter curse.
“Gran we don’t have time to talk about that now,” said Lea, finally cottoning on, “we came here to find out about the blood hunter cu-”
“-Lea!” cried Chiara, cutting her granddaughter off mid-sentence, “You forget your place. This wraith may be half cast, he may even have a good soul, but it is our family’s responsibility to protect that which you seem so willing to destroy.”
“Chris already knows about the blood hunter curse,” Lea said, speaking very fast as she stared at her feet.
“Excuse me? You have entrusted a necromancer with our sacred secrets?” said Chiara. “And how does your circle feel about you befriending wraiths? I seem to recall you telling me that the circle was investigating missing humans on campus; or do you no longer care about them?”
“It’s not like that,” said Lea, still looking at her feet. “I mean, we are still looking into the disappearances, but this is urgent. The blood hunter has already killed some of their line and now it seeks a vampire over a thousand years old. What was I supposed to do? Maybe the blood hunter is responsible for the humans vanishing? When Ari came to me and told me what had happened, I knew the curse would be the only chance of stopping it. So I told Ari. But we needed to get to you, and Chris was the only person who could do that; so I told him too. It’s not like I did it lightly; I put a binding spell on both of them before I told them.”
“And so you decided to betray your ancestors? You know that the Ancients have ways of containing threats such as blood hunters,” said Chiara. “You have been tricked into-”
“-the Ancients can’t contain this blood hunter,” Ari said hurriedly. “They sent a wraith to negotiate for my help to kill it; we didn’t have a choice.”
“Besides,” said Chris, seeing Chiara’s stricken face, “I hate wraiths and vampires; I’m not going to tell them anything about the curse. I just want to help kill the blood sucker.”
“Please,” Ari said. “We need your help… I need your help! I can’t control my powers. I could just as easily kill the people I love, and I can’t let that happen. The blood hunter has taken a friend of mine. He says that he will kill her. Our only chance of stopping this thing is to undo the curse.”
Chiara sighed and took a long sip of her tea.
“Only,” said Chiara, staring from Lea to Ari, “because you are the Grandor descendant, will I help you.”
“Thankyou,” said Ari.
“But you must promise me that if I tell you, you will seek out the truth about your destiny. It has been many thousands of years in the making. You should not take your responsibility lightly. Though only a very few number know of your power, there are many counting on you. You have the innocent to consider,” said Chiara. “Now, as for the blood hunter curse, many centuries ago, when the vampires begun to take over, witches feared that soon there would be no mortals left. So a Crown witch put a curse on all vampires, a curse that would ensure they would think twice before turning a mortal. The blood hunter curse enabled the formation of blood lines. It made it possible for vampires to trace back their own family line and if they killed their maker, or their makers maker and so on, then they would have access to their accumulated power.”
“We already know that gran,” said Lea. “How do we reverse the curse?”
“Upstairs in the chest by my bed,” said Chiara, pointing to a long flight of stairs, “is my book of white. It contains the details of the Blood hunter curse.”
“Thankyou gran,” said Lea, putting her half-finished cup of tea down and moving over to the stairs.
Ari was just about to follow her, when Chiara reached out a hand and grabbed her by the arm.
“Lea and Chris, why don’t you go get the books? I must talk with Ari a while; I can see that time is against you,” she said, indicating for Ari to sit back down, which she did reluctantly.
“I heard what you said,” Ari said, when it was just her and Chiara left in the living room. “But I don’t know if I am the person you’re looking for. I mean, I’m so screwed up. Wouldn’t it just be better to wait for the next Grandor Descendant? They would have to be less messed up than me.”
“There are very few who still believe in the Grandor descendant. Do you know why that is?”
Ari shook her head.
“More than a thousand years ago, when the Ancients realised the threat of the Grandor descendants, they made it their goal to destroy them. Every man, woman or child, who was believed to be a progeny of Grandor, was slaughtered. A powerful witch knew that she needed to protect them; she took the few that remained and made sure that they would not be harmed. She performed a spell, one that concentrated the powers down the line but did not allow them to be expressed. The spell meant that only once would a child be born with all the power of the Grandor line that came before them. This hid the Grandor descendant’s from the vampires, for without their powers, they were not discernable from mortals. Ariana, you are that child; we have been waiting a very long time for you. It is your destiny to kill the vampires which threaten the innocent.”
Ari’s eyes had grown wide, and it was only when a lonely tear fell from them, did she realise that the whole time Chiara had spoken she had not moved a muscle, not to blink or breathe. Now she took in a deep breath, feeling her lungs compress the air with difficulty, as if her airways were tightening.
“But, but how am I supposed to do that?” asked Ari. “I… I love Ragon.”
“You cannot have both. You can’t be saviour and killer; it doesn’t work that way. You are the Grandor Descendant. I know the burden of such power is great. You have so much contained within you and yet there is so much more to come,” said Chiara, and for the first time she smiled at Ari, and reached a wrinkled hand to touch her face. “You have been through much already, but I am afraid it is only the beginning. Both your parents were stolen from you and nothing but darkness would bring them back. But you must not give into the darkness; you must fight against the shadows.”
At these words Ari thought of Cambridge and Larissa. She knew the darkness that Chiara spoke of; the darkness of the wraith’s magic, the dark
ness of evil. The Ancients had tried to tempt her with that darkness, had offered her life in order to be part of it. But it was only because of Ragon that she had refused them. Chiara didn’t understand that it was Ragon’s love that had allowed her to fight them off.
“You don’t understand. It was only because of Ragon that I am even still alive. He’s the one who has made me into a good person, not my powers and not this destiny. I know that everyone thinks vampires are evil, because they drink blood, but they aren’t all like that. I have seen more evil in humans than I have in Ragon and his friends. I won’t kill him, just because of a destiny I have inherited!” said Ari, feeling the weight of her responsibility crashing down on her. “What am I supposed to do?”
Blood Hunter (The Grandor Descendant Series) Page 41