Silence: Part Two of Echoes & Silence

by Am Hudson

  “What if she comes home one day with a vampire for a boyfriend?” I asked David. “Because if she’s more Lilithian than vampire, she will attract vampires, and she will be drawn to them.”

  “Well, I suppose if she does come home with a vampire,” he said, winding his fingers through mine, “I’ll just have to rip his head off and—”

  “David!” I slapped his knee. “Be nice. I was being serious.”

  “And you thought I wasn’t?”

  “You wouldn’t really do that,” I stated. “Not if she loved him.”

  He groaned so softly I only heard it through his belly, where my head rested. “I think the real problem will come from who she brings home; not what.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We’re the King and Queen of the supernatural world. If there’s a new vampire made, we’ll know about it, because we will most likely have either made him or approved his immortality. And if she ends up with an old one…” He left it hanging, and I knew his mind went down the same road as mine; who would it be? And would we approve? What if it was someone we knew had done awful things?

  “What if she comes home with something worse than you?”

  “Not possible,” he said simply. “But we can read minds, Ara, so if he’s a cretin, we’ll know.”

  “That’s a positive, I guess. But what if he sleeps with her before she’s been made immortal—and then she’s Bound to him?”

  David placed his hand firmly on the bare skin under my yellow sweater, tracing a line from my belly button to my jeans. “Right now, all she thinks about in the world is stretching and rolling and kicking. I can’t let my mind go to all the things she’ll think about when she’s older, because it’s just not ready for that, and I know my opinions today will differ greatly when she’s a grown teenager and starts thinking about boys.”

  I scoffed, snorting out a little laugh. “We think about boys long before we’re teenagers, David.”

  “Blocking my ears!” he said, blocking his ears.

  I sat up and went to pull his hands down, when a beam of light reflected off the mirror above us, catching our attention. David was at the door, peering through the curtains, before I even realised he was gone.

  “It’s okay.” He unlocked the door, visibly relaxing. “It’s your dad.”

  My feet tangled in the blankets under me as I leaped up, stumbling a little on my way to the door. “Finally. I wonder what the hell took him so long.”

  “Sam locked me away so I couldn’t run off again,” Dad said with a laugh, closing the car door behind him. He looked different in a casual plaid shirt and jeans—dressed as a man, not the vampire.

  “Oh. That explains it.” I stepped out onto the porch. “How’s he doing?”

  “Not good.” Dad reached the top step quickly and put his arms out to me. “We need to discuss his future.”

  I hugged him tight, trying not to make it obvious that I missed him so much and was so worried that I didn’t want to let go. “What do you mean by his future?”

  Dad pulled back and gave David a quick, manly hug, before speaking. “I’m worried about him.”

  “Well, come inside,” David offered. “I’ve kept the kettle warm on the stove. We can talk over a hot cup of tea.”

  Dad’s eyes moved around the room as he walked through the door, darting from the new stove to the dining table and off to the freshly painted sitting area, complete with a new two-seater sofa beside the old dusty chair.

  “Amazing what a pair of immortals can do in a week,” he said.

  “You can attribute the perfection to my wife,” David said, opening the kitchen cabinet. “I didn’t agree with the olive green at first, but she certainly has an eye for colour.”

  “We painted it two tone,” I offered, “Olive green and cream, but I hated it—”

  “It looked good,” David said.

  “I hated it,” I repeated, “so we went for the wallpaper.”

  “The same colours, but now in stripes. I don’t see the difference,” David said.

  “That’s because you’re looking at it with man eyes.”

  Dad laughed. “It takes the place back to the twenties, I think.” He ran a hand over the wallpaper as he passed the kitchen, and took a seat at our new round, and very sturdy, dining table. “Cosy enough to spend the winter in, I hope?”

  “We need to replace the floorboards and the tiles on the roof,” I said, sitting down beside Dad, “but it won’t take long.”

  “And the baby?” he asked. “Where will you put a crib?”

  David and I exchanged glances. How had neither of us thought of that?

  “We’ll get to that once we’re sure we’re staying,” David said, laying three cups and a bowl of sugar on the table. “I have a feeling we’ll be back at the manor by then.”

  “Is that so?” Dad said, one eye scrunching up into a cunning smile. “So you did see my vision—the battle at Loslilian?”

  “I did.”

  Dad nodded then, as if to confirm it to himself.

  “Do we win?” I asked. “Can you see the outcome?”

  “No.” He took the sugar bowl and scooped a spoonful into his cup as David came over with a hot pot of tea. “But I know that Drake’s men will fight alongside us.”

  I grinned at David.

  “And Mike will be there,” Dad added.

  David nearly dropped the pot as he sat down. “What?”

  “I’m not sure why.” Dad shook his head, taking the teapot from David and pouring us all a cup. “All I know is that he’s there.”

  “And the boys—Max and Josh?” I asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  That worried me—that something might happen to them and Mike would return. Maybe for vengeance.

  “David.” Dad regarded him in a very businesslike manner, contradicting his casual attire with the overgrowth along his jaw and the unusually shaggy hair. “I’m not sure what has happened in the time that I’ve been away, but there is something we must discuss now, before anything else.”

  “We know,” David said, sipping his tea casually. “And I’ve already addressed the hypotheticals we once discussed with Ara.”

  Dad looked at me. “Then you know that David is not the man you were supposed to be with?”

  “Actually, you’re wrong,” I said diplomatically, folding my fingers together on the tabletop. “David’s not the Knight that would bring Anandene into the world, but he is most definitely the man I’m supposed to be with.”

  “I stand corrected,” Dad said with a soft smile.

  David reached across and placed his hand over mine, giving it a gentle squeeze.

  “At any rate, you will bear a soulless child, Amara. And we need to plan for that.” Dad’s eyes went to my chest. “Where is your crux?”

  “At the manor—where it’s safe,” David said.

  “It’s safe on her clavicle,” he demanded. “She needs to wear it at all times.”

  “Why?” I snorted. “It’s not like I wore it growing up.”

  “You didn’t need it then.”

  “And I do now?”

  He nodded once. “A Soul Bind lasts the span of roughly twenty years. Much like with the power of a crux, the synthetic connection of a soul to a body fades, weakens over time.”

  “And mine’s a synthetic connection?”

  “You were not born with that soul. It is linked to you by Nature’s Magic—which, for twenty years, binds with your blood, but after that, the soul must remain near the crux—until the crux magic fades some twenty or so years later.”

  “Oh.” I touched my bare clavicle. “And what about after that?”

  “After that you must regenerate your crux—bury it and use a Spell to link it to your soul again.”

  “That’s possible?” My eyes widened. “Then why didn’t Eve tell me to do that with her crux, I—”

  “Different set of rules when dealing with souls that have no body. And another set of rul
es entirely when bringing a soul from the other side to this—without going through the proper channels. But in your case, you can regenerate your crux. But you must wear it at all times, Amara—”

  “Ara,” I reminded him.

  “Sorry. Ara,” he corrected himself.

  “Why?” I said, adding, “do I have to wear it? What’s the big deal if I don’t—aside from leaving my body when I sleep?”

  “The Soul Takers,” he said in a low voice, and my mind instantly made the connection to all the scary stories he used to tell me when I was a child.

  I slowly sat back a little and my spine straightened.

  “What?” David asked, completely clueless.

  “Dad told me stories when I was little—about these creatures that lived in the shadows. They stalked the night, hunting for souls that didn’t belong, and if they found one, they would force it out of its body and take it straight to a place of suffering—where it would be trapped for eternity. Never to be free.” I looked at Dad. “So those weren’t just stories?”

  “No, honey. They were a warning—as are most fables.”

  “So, the crux hides her from them—from the Soul Takers?” David asked.

  “Its power mimics the aura an attached soul radiates,” Dad explained. “In most cases, they cannot recognise her as a detached soul.”

  In most cases? I laid both hands firmly over my belly. If those dark shadows found me here and forced me from my body—permanently—my baby would die. “How long do I have—to get my crux back and get it on?”

  “I cannot say.” Dad sighed, the air coming from his nose like a bull. He placed his cup down. “But I would not advise you to wait.”

  It was settled then: we needed to win back Loslilian, and we needed to do it quickly. But that meant teaming up with the enemy—Drake. I might trust him, but my people didn’t. How could I win back their trust if I consorted with the man that attacked us just weeks ago? And if I didn’t have their trust, we could win the battle but never the war, to be cliché, and then Walt would sit on the throne for all time. I’d be cast out, the Soul Takers would get me, and my baby would die!

  A volcano of hurt and fear and over-tiredness erupted in my chest, coming out like a bullet toward my dad. “This entire mess is your fault, Dad!”

  “Ara.” David touched my arm.

  “It’s true—he’s the one that moved Lilith’s soul in the first place. Why would you do that, Dad? If you knew the dangers, knew how evil Anandene was, why would you have done it in the first place?”

  “It was so long ago now, Ara,” he said calmly, “I sometimes don’t even know the answer to that myself.”

  “It would have been for good reason, my love,” David offered gently, as if I was a rabid beast.

  “I can tell you, Ara,” Dad said, “that, at first, I did this for the love of my son and of my daughter; this was what they wanted, and what could I do but help them?”

  “So you just agreed.” I snapped my fingers. “Here, take my daughter’s soul and bring an evil witch to life with it.”

  “It was not that simple, Amara, and do not be so callous.” His voice took on that commanding tone that usually scared me, but this time, it didn’t even give me a shiver. “It took some lengthy conversations and an awful lot of convincing, and there were rules set in place.”

  “What rules?”

  “For one, the new child, blessed with the soul of my daughter, was to be given a life—a human life, before and after she conceived the babe Anandene. I would not have a life brought into this world only to be taken away at sixteen.”

  “Well, I guess that plan failed, because Drake intended to take my life as soon as the child was born.”

  “Because you’re not human now, Amara. The agreement was for a human life. Human lifetime. Not eternity.”

  “So you can just change a blood-binding agreement to fit your own desires—whatever goes, right?”

  “Watch your tone, Amara. I may have left my human life behind, but I am still your father and I will not tolerate disrespect.”

  “Disrespect! I’m not being disrespectful. I’m mad because my entire life, my future, my baby’s future, is dictated by your past mistakes!”

  “Your life is a result of my past mistakes, so do not be so quick to point the finger of blame, because were it not for my errors, you would not exist.” He sat back, rubbing his hairline firmly with both hands. “The only reason I first agreed to this—the only reason I ever signed that contract—is because, when I sat down with my son before it all took place, and asked him why it was so important that he bring this girl back to life after all the ways she’d harmed our world, I saw the eternal agony of lost love in his eyes. Had I not, none of this would ever have even happened.”

  “So it didn’t matter to you that his love was so evil people feared her rebirth?”

  “It mattered, but I was naïve enough to think that she would grow anew with love—as a Daughter of Lilith—and she would be different. I have since learned that is not the case—that she would have been born as an exact reincarnation. And in this changing world, there is no place for magic. There is no place for evil in any form. So I set out to stop the child ever being born.”

  “Then you should have killed the soulless vessel decades ago.”

  “Yes, I should have. If not for the sake of Lilith and all that descended from her, then for the sake of my son Drake—for what this fight has done to tear us apart.”

  “I didn’t think you were ever that close.”

  “We were. Once. Until I kidnapped the first soulless child and tried to keep it from him. That is when he became the warrior—the High Lord that men in his close circles feared—even Arthur.”

  “I thought people always feared him?”

  Both Dad and David shook their heads.

  “Even I knew there was a time when Drake was too kind for the good of our people,” David said.

  “Which is what led to the overpopulation of vampires,” Dad cut in. “So when he became cruel and heartless after I stole the soulless vessel, it sent shockwaves through our community. And we played a battle of wits for hundreds of years, but as each decade has passed, the virility and burn within his fight has died a little more. Until around the year you were born, when it suddenly burned with a fire so bright I didn’t recognise my own son.” His eyes drifted to thought. “Something happened that year. Something that changed him—made bringing his wife back suddenly more important than it had been fifty years ago.”

  “Are you saying he just… what, couldn’t be bothered for a few decades?”

  “It was my belief that he had given up.” Dad nodded. “For a time, until, as I said, that year. But even now, in the few times I’ve seen my son since your wedding day, I do not see the fight within him that was once there.”

  “Then why is he pursuing it?”

  He cleared his throat. “Perhaps because the rumours among our people about an evil witch are not just rumours.”

  “What rumours?” I said.

  “The only rumour I’ve ever heard is that she’s an immortal witch,” David said. “Which isn’t possible. We all know that.”

  “It is possible.” Dad poured another cup of tea, looking up from the brown water to add, “Her soul would be as rotten as a corpse, but it is possible.”

  “Why would a witch want immortality so badly she’d be willing to taint her own soul?” I asked. “From what I know of witches, they value Life, Nature—”

  “Well, if the inner leaflet of Anandene’s family bible is correct, Safia is her mother,” Dad said. “Although I have no proof that this is true, but the love for a daughter would be a very good reason for a witch to acquire immortality.”

  “Which makes her motive to want this child born greater than Drake’s.” I looked at David, concerned.

  “And gives her reason to bring harm, perhaps, to any who would stand in the way,” Dad added, and a few things clicked into place: Drake’s love for family, hi
s need to protect it over all else—why would this man I know now have done the things in the past that he’s done if family meant so much to him? Why would he have killed my mum and Harry just to get me near David? Why would he have played along with the ancient story of war and hatred between him and Lilith—enough that his own niece ended up being tortured right before his eyes? None of it fit. None if it made sense when I stepped back and looked at Drake as the man I’d come to know.

  “Dad,” I said, not really sure I wanted to know, because if the answer was no, then I still had good reason to hate this uncle I was starting to like, “do you think Safia made Drake kill my mum?”

  “That’s a good question.” He stared ahead, his eyes small with thought. “And I would like to believe that because, for the son I knew—for the son that loved his sister Lily—it never fit. He has always been a dark man with a cold heart for humans, but not for family.”

  “But what could she hold over him? It must be something bad to make him hurt his family this way.”

  “I have a theory.” He paused, closing his eyes for a moment as he breathed out long and deep. “If I tell you this, it must be met with the solemn promise that you will not use it against him.” He opened his eyes and looked right at me, then especially at David. “Drake is my son and, should I see fit to remove him from this world, that is my prerogative, but if you, or any of your people, act—”

  “I promise, Dad,” I cut in. “And David does too.”

  David nodded.

  “Very well.” He moved his cup aside and gathered his hands together in front of him, leaning a little closer. “Amara, you know, have known since you discovered what you are, that you cannot die—unless you’re beheaded and left in pieces.”