by Candy Crum
My skin began that tingle again that was starting to feel very familiar. Sydney looked up to the sky. Something about the way she studied it made me feel paranoid. Thunder cracked in the distance and her head snapped to the right. I followed her gaze to see that the sky had darkened even more off to the west.
Dizziness was beginning to take hold as pressure settled into the front of my head. I pinched the bridge of my nose, massaging the area as I attempted to relieve the tension.
Kailah…
The voice caused my heart rate to spike and the tiny hairs all over me to stand. The tingling in my skin grew worse. I looked down to inspect my hands, but my jaw fell open and tears began to form in my eyes as I saw the tiniest, faint blue glow surrounding me. It vibrated around me no more than a quarter inch. It was so small, but it was there. I could see it. The raw energy that I’d seen in my dreams.
I looked up to Sydney to ask if she could see what I did. If I was going crazy, but a whole new fear began trickling down my body, setting my nerves on fire and making the crackle in the air intensify. Her eyes quickly focused on mine as if she felt the change in my emotion. I couldn’t stop the sharp intake of breath that came as our gazes locked. The beautiful hazel color had sharpened and her pupils were slightly dilated, even outside in the light.
At that moment, I could see the air around her wasn’t like it had been before. It wavered like heat rising from pavement on a hot summer day. It would disappear from my sight, but show itself again in a pinkish-red hue. Realization struck me as I stared into those eyes. Her presence had been familiar. Seeing her right then, I knew why.
Vampire.
The word echoed through my mind. It screamed at me as I looked at her. Without a doubt, I knew that faint red aura was no different than the Vampire I’d seen in my dreams the night before.
“Kailah, you shouldn’t be here any longer. You need to leave. I’ll handle things from here. Go,” Sydney said.
I stared at her for a moment. I knew I should leave. I knew I shouldn’t stay, that I should do exactly as she told me to do: run. But I couldn’t.
“Sydney,” I began, making an attempt to hide my nervousness. “I saw someone in the ER. She had long white hair and bright blue eyes. Does that sound familiar to you?”
Her eyes narrowed as her light red aura flashed. She opened her mouth to speak, but closed it again. “She’s coming. I can feel her. Go. Now! If you stay longer, I might not be able to save you.”
I nodded. “Thank you, Vampire Sydney.”
I said it out loud and her expression didn’t change. No laughing. No confusion. Only determination. That was all I needed. I turned, but it was too late. I’d wasted too much time trying to process what was happening. There she stood, just outside the crowd. That dark smile was on her face again as she leaned against a large truck.
The glow of her eyes stood out above everything else, her long white hair whipping around her in the wind. Sydney’s body was a blur as she rushed to stand in front of me. It was impossible for someone to move that fast, but she had.
“Now, Kailah!” Sydney shouted.
It was real. Everything was really happening. I wanted it to be a dream. I wanted this to be an extension of the dream that I’d had the night before, but I was awake. Of that, there was no doubt. The squeal of tires pulled me from my thoughts, and I turned to see my best friend’s blue Chevy Cruze skid to a stop.
“Rachel?” I said.
“Kailah!” she shouted from the car. “We have to go now!”
“Go,” Sydney ordered.
She turned to face me, and I saw her aura had darkened to a beautiful, brilliant red. Her eyes had turned to a shadowy gray. Looking at her made my heart race and my stomach roll. The energy crawling on my skin exploded forward into a barrier without my control. It surrounded me, protecting me from what my instincts screamed was a threat, but I knew otherwise. She was helping me. She was trying to save me.
Sydney hissed in pain as she forced her arm through the barrier. I watched as her skin began to smoke and turn to ash. She fought hard and moved faster as her hand came to grip my throat. “I’ll occupy Khia while you escape,” she said just before throwing my like a ragdoll across the grass and directly into Rachel’s car.
I sputtered as the air attempted to escape my lungs. I righted myself, catching my breath as I did. From where I was, struggling to crawl into Rachel’s car, I was able to see Sydney’s arm heal from where my barrier had burned her.
Rain and large hail began to fall as I belted myself in. I could hear the pained screams of the patients and my conscience began to eat at me. Could I really leave them to die? Rachel’s foot didn’t give me the opportunity to decide. The car lurched forward on screeching tires as she began our getaway.
Rachel and I gasped as a large pink Dogwood that stood on the corner of the street spontaneously engulfed in thick orange and blue flames. Before we could even reach the end of the block, the tree broke in half from the intense heat and completely cut off our turn.
The scream of the Cruze’s brakes sounded out once again as Rachel locked them up on the wet pavement, but it was too late. The front tires managed to climb over the thick trunk, but dangled over the other side as the underbelly came to rest too far from the ground for them to reach the pavement.
“She’s not going to let us leave!” I shouted. My breathing was coming in ragged gasps as I began panicking even more. “What are we going to do?”
My biggest worry was the fire burning beneath us. If we didn’t move soon, the car would explode. Rachel was a pillar of strength as I looked into her eyes, watching as she studied our surroundings. She was calm and cool in situations that required it, even in that one. I envied her that.
“I don’t think it’ll be much of an issue,” Rachel said, putting the car in neutral as she looked into the rearview mirror.
I was about to ask what the hell she might be referring to, but my question was answered before I even had a chance to ask. The rear end of the car rose from the ground, and I turned to see Sydney’s tiny form doing all the heavy lifting. She pushed the car forward and over the tree.
“Now!” Sydney yelled over the noise of the heavy rain and hail.
If there’d been any doubt in my mind, it certainly wasn’t there any longer. As soon as Rachel hit the gas, a large gust of wind slammed into us, momentarily lifting the car on the left two wheels and launching Sydney across the street into a large fence. Once all four tires made contact with pavement, Rachel wasted no time hitting the gas and speeding away.
Ignoring the red light and cutting off several people in the process, Rachel made a hard right onto the main highway that lead out of town. I felt her hand on mine, and I realized that I was still gasping to catch my breath. My throat was on fire because it was so dry, and my head was splitting. All things that I failed to notice during our getaway.
“Rach, how did you know?” I asked as tears began streaming down my face. I couldn’t hold it any longer. That was the most terrifying moment of my life.
“I got a random phone call from someone telling me that you were in danger. She said that you didn’t know her yet, but that you would. She said that if I didn’t listen, you’d either be dead or in grave danger within the hour. I was told exactly where to go and how much time I had to be there. It was the craziest thing. She was right about everything.”
Someone that I didn’t know, but would. I wondered if it was the raven-haired Vampire that I’d seen in my dream.
“Why did she call you and not me?”
“She knew you’d be at the hospital. She knew where you worked. She probably knew you wouldn’t exactly be able to take phone calls.”
“Okay. Well, the new doc turned out to be a damn Vampire. So, surely, she could have sent the message through her. None of this makes sense. Did she give you a name?”
“I don’t know why they contacted me. All I knew was that it was serious. They knew too much about you for it to be fake. And y
eah. She said her name was Sayen.”
Something about that name seemed very familiar to me.
“Do you recognize the name?” Rachel asked.
I nodded as my memory returned to me. “Yeah, but it’s not possible. When I helped my paternal grandfather and my uncle record the family tree onto their computers, I saw that name. That was the name of my great-great grandmother. She would have to be over a hundred and twenty years old. More than that, even. Did she sound elderly? Wait… impossible. Don’t bother answering.”
“Well, no. Obviously. She sounded no older than you or me, but Kay, are you really going to dismiss her as unreal or impossible? A woman weighing all of a hundred pounds just picked you up by the throat and tossed you like a football. She did that just before lifting and carrying this big ass car a few feet over a damn tree. All that, mind you, to save us from a woman with some crazy nasty power.”
I nodded again. “I suppose you’re right. This is all just a bit too much to deal with. Yesterday, I was a normal girl with a normal hectic life. Today, I’m not even sure I’m human, or at least even half.”
“We’ll figure this out. I promise.”
Khanae: The Eternally Damned
Memoirs of an Egyptian Goddess Vol. 1
(An Eternal Series Prequel)
Pre-Order Link: http://a.co/79Ee8zM
Prologue
Three thousand years I have walked this earth. Three thousand years I have watched the humans grow in strength and intelligence, while also growing in violence and lack of compassion. I have seen empires rise, including my own. I have seen many of them fall.
That is part of what immortality is. Change. Adapting. Losing…
Immortality is growing and choosing a path to use your gift to help those around you, or to rule them. There was never a choice for me. My mother instilled in me a great sense of duty and humility. If they are weaker than you, teach them. Help them grow. Your people are only as good as your slowest, most fragile man or woman. If your weakest ally is more powerful than your strongest foe, you can never lose.
Being raised as a servant taught me compassion and a sense of family among those that shared no blood with me. It taught me duty and loyalty to my people—the men, women, and children with whom I served. When I say this, I should say that being a servant in my time, under the Pharaoh and his Queen, was something much different than the slavery many experienced and now learn about.
The Pharaoh and his Queen were kind and just, though you would never know that by looking in a history book. My fellow servants and I never received harsh punishment as a terrible form of what those in power grossly considered “motivation.” We were simply expected to perform well, or our station would be changed until we did. We were well fed and praised for our work and dedication. Never harmed for mistakes. To make a mistake was human, and it was forgiven—as it should be. From what I saw in the empires that rose and fell afterward, that kind of treatment was not the norm.
Humans haven’t changed much over the years, only their methods have. As I’ve aged and gained wisdom, I have become more motherly. Humans, Werewolves, even the Immortals—as long as they show compassion for those that are different than them—whatever they may be, I find myself wanting to care for them and be responsible for them. My mother was the same way, though she didn’t live long enough to see me become what I am. A Vampire. A Queen. She did not live to see the cataclysm that spawned from her death, and mine soon after. This is something to be grateful for, though I believe she would have been proud of me.
I find myself releasing a heavy sigh as I write this. My heart is heavy thinking of my mother. Perhaps yours will be as you read of her kindness and love for those around her. Maybe she was like your own mother, or someone you thought of as a mother. Finally, I have gathered the courage to tell my story, her story. The world will never recall her having existed. Not the real Nefertari, true Queen of Egypt.
The history books have no record of our existence, as it was completely stricken and then rewritten. It had to be so we could cover the existence of the shadow world and protect the humans and protect ourselves. Even then, not everyone completely took to the compulsion, to the magic. Legends of our existence passed through the generations, but were lost down the road as myth. Fairy tale.
This is my journey. My memoirs.
The Egyptian deserts are both beautiful and dangerous. In some places, the heat rises and scorches everything that it touches. The rolling sand dunes in the distance are magical to look at, but can wreak havoc in the wind. The days are intense and the nights are frigid, making the desert an unbearable place for some of those who visit, but to a native, it is home. The River Nile gives life, and we built our villages, cities, and empires on its shores.
Pharaoh Amenhotep built his kingdom north of Thebes in the Eastern desert. It was a prosperous kingdom, as the Pharaoh had spent much time growing the trade into and out of Egypt. He took pride in being able to feed his people, but they had to work hard for what they had. Nothing was simply given.
The Nile wasn’t far away, but it was far enough that it was quite a trip in the hot sun. In fact, it was on a secluded section of the shore of that very river that I took my first breath. In the company of a midwife, and two of her most trusted servants, my mother gave birth to me. It was early morning, as she told it, and the sun was only beginning to kiss the top of the sand dunes in the distance. The heat would be unbearable soon, as the days in Egypt usually were, and my mother prayed to the gods that labor would move swiftly.
In the wee hours, just before the sun had fully risen, my mother gave birth to a girl that she said was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. I had her darker olive skin and her obsidian hair, but green eyes that was very unique to a native Egyptian at that time. It turns out that I inherited much more from her than only my looks. A fact, of which, I have always been proud.
“Queen Nefertari, what will you call her?” Nephthys, the midwife, asked.
My mother, Nefertari, smiled. “She will have a name unlike any other. I will call her Khanae.”
“It is as beautiful as she is, my Queen. Feed her while you have the chance. Once you have finished, we must take her. Soon, the villagers will come to collect water. We cannot allow you to be seen with the child. The people believe you have been ill for months. They must believe Ipy is the mother. Those were the Pharaoh’s wishes,” Ahset, one of my mother’s servants, had said.
My mother told me that the tears she wept right then should have overflowed the river. In those days, and for many, many years after, if a woman gave birth to a child that was not her husband’s, she was killed. The Pharaoh, as I mentioned earlier, was not that kind of man.
My mother’s indiscretion was considered a great mistake. He loved her like any woman deserves to be loved. Not only was he kind and patient to his people, but he was even more so to his beloved wife. She was a wonderful queen, and one that was respected by the people.
The Pharaoh couldn’t bear the thought of bringing harm to her. This included shunning her, or even allowing the public to know. He knew they would only judge her, and she knew they would judge him as well. He would be seen as weak. Together, they decided to protect their family and their thrones.
He decided that she would carry me, and I would be born, but in private. I was to be raised by the servants, as a servant. My station was to be with the Queen. We were never to be parted. The Pharaoh would never place me in the harem, and I would never be sold off. The only stipulation was that the secret never be told.
In the public eye, I was a slave girl. Never a daughter.
Behind closed doors, however, my mother would breast feed me as a baby. She would bathe me and kiss my face. She would sing to me, and the Pharaoh even allowed her to sleep next to me. As I got older, she would brush my long black hair, dress me in the finest jewels and clothing—for private show only, of course—and she would take meals with me. I always brought extra when I served her meals.
&n
bsp; Alone with my mother and the women she trusted most, I had the life of a princess. Outside, I was no better than the common villager. One would think it was a terrible way to raise a child, but to me, it was wonderful. At that time, it allowed me to be with my mother instead of being sent to a village to be raised by a stranger. So, instead of being hurt by it, I was grateful for what I did have. It is because of living both sides that I grew to appreciate the hardships of those under the Pharaoh’s rule, but I also saw what it was like to have extreme wealth and power. Even as a child, I didn’t care much for it. Riches didn’t interest me.
As wonderful as my life was in my eyes, accepting it as normal was all done by habit. Repetitive training. In my five-year-old brain, some things didn’t make sense. I knew that my mother was indeed my mother, but I was trained to call her Queen. I knew that the Pharaoh was not my father, but he treated me like a daughter. I never learned who my biological father was.
It wasn’t until I was older that I learned that my mother’s “indiscretion” had been more the effects of alcohol and opium—which was common-use then—combined with a rotten servant who took liberties with the Queen against her wishes in hopes of rising in rank. My mother said that she’d been hurt so that he may leverage a position out of her as a warrior instead of a servant. He blackmailed her for a more respected position.
Unfortunately for him, my mother was a very honest woman and told her husband what happened, and what the man had asked for. My mother never divulged to me what happened to him, but I always suspected that it wasn’t anything close to what he’d asked for. Just because the Pharaoh had been understanding and compassionate to my mother, didn’t mean that he would be forgiving to the man that had assaulted her while partially unconscious.
My earliest years, up to the age of five, I spent time with many women that served in the kingdom. I played with royal cousins and, essentially, what would be considered step-siblings in the harem. They had no idea who I was to them. Though, I suppose that it didn’t matter much. I had so much fun.