by SARA FREITES
Okay. I’m bringing her in now.”
As he hung up, I gripped his shirt and sobbed into his chest. It felt like my soul had been torn from my body. After hearing a noise, we froze. I threw my hands over my nose and mouth to stifle my cries. A group of people casually walked by the alleyway.
“We have to go back!” I cried as soon as they passed. “We have to see if they left them alive!”
“Autumn,” Blake said. “The only heartbeat I heard in that house was yours. No one else was—”
“We have to go back!” I repeated.
“We can’t go back. Did you hear what I told Thade?” he asked. “They’re incredibly strong. They’d kill us both.”
“It’s all my fault they’re dead!” I gasped.
“This is not your fault. I have to get you back to Thade.”
We bolted into the air. I felt numb by the time we arrived at the Sanctum. There were no more tears left to cry, and my face and Blake’s shoulder were soaked by the ones I’d already shed. I kept my face hidden in Blake’s warm neck while he carried me inside the Sanctum. There, Thade and a few others rushed at us, their faces hard with frustration.
“Is she hurt?” Thade asked.
“She’ll be fine," Blake answered coolly.
“She’s bleeding,” Thade observed.
“I’m going to take care of that,” Blake replied.
“Well, whatever it is you do, make it quick. I want Autumn to find out what it was that Latresma wrote in her spell book about these two lunatics. Eden is gathering it for us now.”
“Where do you want me to take her?” Blake asked.
“To A level for now.”
“Where is everyone else?”
“A handful of our men are dead from the earlier attack on the other safehaven. A few others are disposing of the bodies. The rest of the clan is securing the Sanctum and the grounds close by.”
“How did they die?” Blake asked, astounded.
“Hellfire. I don’t know how to explain it.”
“I think I do.”
As they spoke, Blake carried me down into A level, Thade in pursuit. It was a rare sight to see that place so vacant. Blake took me into one of the larger bedrooms and into its bathroom.
“I’ve got you,” he assured me while I shivered.
He flipped the light switch on with his fingertips and set me on the edge of the tub. Reaching down, he turned the water on. Cold droplets splashed the back of my arms while he twisted the hot water knob. Before stuffing the stopper in the drain, he tested the water temperature with his hand. I wrapped my arms around my waist while I waited. He took a soap bottle from the side of the tub to squeeze some of its contents into the rising water. Bubbles and suds erupted. The sight of them brought back an old memory.
The last time I’d taken a real bubble bath, I had the flu. My mom had to pull me from the couch where I’d stayed bundled up in a blanket all day. Into the bathroom she practically dragged me. There, a hot bubble bath awaited me. This memory brought even more tears to my eyes. I blinked them away as Blake brushed some of my hair out of my face with his hand.
“Go ahead and get in,” he said, his voice quiet. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
With that, he left the room, giving me some privacy. I shivered while taking off my clothes. My mind went completely blank while I listened to the water dump into the tub. The sound it made filled the air. I threw my bloodied clothes in a heap and slowly stepped into the water. The warmth sent tingles all over my body as I sank deeper. The soap and bubbles stung the cuts on my arms and legs. I cringed when I sank under the water. The bubbles rose until every inch of me just below my chin lay hidden beneath the suds that darkened to pink from the blood. I watched my hair as it floated like two frosted islands above the surface. Silence.
I heard the door open and quickly checked to be sure I was hidden enough by the bubbles floating atop the water. Blake came in and set a towel and a change of clothes on the sink. He shut the water off, and with a washcloth in hand, he knelt beside the tub. He set the washcloth on the edge while I lightly touched my scalp wound. It had stopped bleeding but remained unbearably sore. Blake brought his hand to his lips and bit deep into his own wrist. He pulled away from his flesh, his fangs coated in red. Concerned, I sat up, but he stopped me.
“It’s okay,” he assured me. “Remember?”
I had to think back—he’d healed me once before with his blood. I winced as he placed a washcloth over his new wound and pressed against it.
“I just need to get this in your bloodstream like last time,” he reminded me.
He dabbed one of the many cuts on my arm with the soiled washcloth, careful to keep me hidden under the bubbles. I watched his healing bite wound as it disappeared without a trace. I could feel my injuries healing, too. And they stung, itching as they faded away. The pain disappeared. He grabbed another washcloth, wet it and carefully scrubbed the dried blood from my arms and out of my hair. As he cleaned the last of it from my wrist, I gazed thoughtlessly at the bubbles floating peacefully atop the bathtub water.
“Blake!” Thade called. “Come here.”
“Take a quick shower and rinse off,” Blake ordered gingerly.
I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand as he left me alone in the bathroom again. When he closed the door, I sat up and strained my ears to listen through it. Terry’s muffled voice could be heard on the other side.
“Blake, did you say these two men claimed to be Latresma’s children? I served as a guard on Latresma’s royal court. I would have known about this if it were true.”
“That’s what they told us,” Blake replied. “We’ll know for sure once Autumn searches through the spell book.”
As their voices faded, I got out of the tub, drained the bloody water and showered. My body was racked with pain, but not the physical kind anymore. This was an emotional pain that ran immeasurably within the core of my being. I felt like I’d aged one hundred years—I was like a feeble old woman stepping out of the shower, shaking, hunched over. Hardly strong enough to hold myself upright, I wrapped a towel around me. I pictured the faces of my family…tried replaying conversations I’d last had with each of them. My form moved behind the foggy mirror, but I made sure not to look, careful not to catch a glimpse of my grief-stricken face. I set my back against the towel rack. My knees bumped into one another as my hand grew too weak to hold the towel around myself. It loosened and fell open around me.
I’m not sure how long I cried when Blake slipped in. I stifled my cries and tried to cover myself, but it didn’t matter. Blake respectfully kept his eyes on the ground.
“I’m sorry,” I stammered. “I need a few…I need a few more minutes.”
“I’m not rushing you,” he said as he came to me.
He loomed over me like a skyscraper as I wheezed for air. He took my towel and covered me back up with it. I fell into him when he offered me his hands. He wrapped his arms around me, bringing me close. I sobbed into his chest.
“We’re going to do everything in our power to make this right,” he whispered.
“I don’t want anyone else to get hurt,” I cried.
The last thing I wanted was for anything to happen to Blake or the vampires. Despite what they were, they were all I had now.
“Don’t worry about that right now. Okay?” He stepped back and caught my chin between his thumb and index finger.
My eyes floated up to meet his. “Okay.” My voice cracked as I answered.
“As soon as you’re ready, we’re right here,” he assured me.
Two tears rushed down my right cheek. He wiped them away with his thumb. With that, he left. As soon as I changed into the clothes he’d left me, I took my cell phone from my other jeans and placed it in my back pocket. I left behind my bloody clothes and towel and stepped out, tying my hair into a big damp bun on top of my head. Our usual group looked to me from the middle of the room. Eden broke away from the circle they’d formed with Lat
resma’s spell book in hand.
“You don’t have to read it front to back. Just skim through and see if you can find something that looks like maybe a journal entry,” she advised.
She handed the small leather book to me. I stared without expression at it before taking it from her. She led me to the group while I flipped through its hundreds of pages.
“Okay,” I said and sat down on one of the couches.
“Terry, I know you worked alongside Latresma. So, I’d like you to stay and listen with us,” Thade said, his voice remained tense. “Harper? Take Garrett and Eden along with you. Help the others secure the perimeter. In about another hour, have everyone meet us where Latresma’s body used to be.”
Harper nodded. He, with the two havidens just behind him, ascended the grand staircase. Blake sat down beside me. Thade leaned with his back against one of the white pillars near us. Terry came to sit across from us on the sectional while rubbing his hands together. I scanned through the loose pages, the words blurring together from uprising tears. I wiped my eyes.
My mind raced with conflicting thoughts. Everything was pointless now. Whatever was in that book became less and less important with every passing second. I could have cared less what Latresma wrote about her two psycho kids. I didn’t care that they were running rampant around the city. But at the same time, I knew I wanted them dead for what they did. Even so, my family was gone, and nothing else mattered to me anymore. Killing them wouldn’t bring them back.
But I reminded myself—Blake and the others had risked their lives for me. I felt that giving up now would be selfish. I couldn’t abandon the vampire clan, not even emotionally. They needed me. Acknowledging that Latresma possibly knew how to get rid of her two sons was what drove me to keep flipping through the old pages. Finally, I came across an odd gap between paragraphs at the very end of the book. I turned over three or four pages. After reading a few words, I realized I’d found something like a journal entry. It, too, was written entirely in French. I skimmed over another paragraph or two, finding Terry’s name amidst the words. My eyes collecting a few other names on the pages, as well.
“Wow. Well, here it is,” I announced. “I never read all the way to the back of the book. Terry, your name is in here.”
“I’m not surprised,” Terry spoke up. “I was part of Lady Latresma’s Royal Guard.”
“Your name’s in here too, Blake,” I added.
“That’s the other Blake I told you about, the one Arlos hated,” Blake told me.
I went a few pages back, and that’s where I found the beginning of the journal entry. My eyes stopped on the first line.
“The date. February 4th. That’s the day my brother—” I began. I couldn’t even say it. Not after what had just happened to my family. I shook my head. “I remember having this weird dream around midnight. I think that’s the same time my aura appeared, too. I started noticing people staring, following me around after that.”
“That’s also the date Latresma was murdered,” Terry spoke up.
I looked up, stunned.
“There are no coincidences here, I assure you,” Thade confirmed. “You share a stronger connection with her than we realized.”
“My French isn’t perfect, so this might not be a completely accurate translation,” I explained weakly.
“Do your best,” Thade encouraged.
And then, I began reading aloud Latresma’s story.
Chapter 19
Part 1
A Tale Through Time
February 4th, 1715
Paris, France
Snow still coats the ground from last night’s storm. What is hopefully the last ice of the year masks the roads. I can hear it popping and crackling under passing carriages. A storm blew in just before dark, leaving the city under snow and ice. Branches from even the largest trees are bowing from the weight, frozen rain encasing them. From the manor rooftop, I can see smoke rising from hundreds of chimneys across the city. Warm yellow lights illuminate the windows of those cozy, human homes. The city lights are comforting and remind me of a time long ago when I was just like them—human. I missed it, missed being a part of that race.
The people of this city are ecstatic. Our former king, Louis XIV, who’d taken us through numerous wars, passed away in September of last year. The exhausted and anxious people of our kingdom can only pray that our young new leader King Louis XV will strive to keep the peace.
Another factor in the climate of our society is the Vampire Nation as it teeters on a precipice. The vampire king and queen’s decision to step down last year after their four-hundred-year reign caught us all by surprise. After many months of deliberating, Lord Cavell and I were chosen to take their places. Although he and I don’t bear the titles of king and queen just yet, we’ve already assumed the roles. We were arranged to be married today with a coronation ceremony to follow. However, none of this can take place tonight as a demon has us all at a standstill.
Looking upon the Notre Dame Cathedral standing boldly in the distance, I realize how clearly I am thinking. Now that Arlos is no longer filling my head full of lies and insanity, I can see things as they are. Arlos wasn’t who he wanted us to believe, and Blake had tried to warn us all. Arlos was arrested tonight, but this frightens me. I fear it is all part of his own scheming.
While I run my hand over these blank pages, my thoughts transposing through my fingertips, I hope this testimony will be helpful to you, young human. That is, if I am forced to call my soul into your body. If not, you will never see this. You’ll never have to.
Everything will be explained here—less like a journal, as this may appear, and more like a story. I need you to know everything as it happened, no matter how minuscule it may seem.
I’m saddened to say that things were never supposed to be like this. I don’t know where to begin, but I suppose it would be best if I started from the beginning…just before I met him.
Some of the information contained herein could be damning to me if read by someone else, but I cursed the pages of this book to appear blank to anyone other than myself when I first began writing spells in its pages last year. Thus, you will be able to see them, too.
It was January, just a little over a year ago. I would be two hundred and one years old to the date. My soon-to-be husband Lord Cavell had asked to speak with me, I assumed about the wedding. As part of the Royal Vampire Court tradition, a marriage is to be arranged between the highest ranked leaders selected to lead as king and queen—in this case, Lord Cavell and I. Most would see this as an honor. I’ve never felt this way. Unfortunately, my being forced into a marriage and a position I don’t want is both irrelevant and inevitable.
But as we spoke, I realized Cavell had a more pressing matter to bring up. He told me he’d be meeting with Blake within the hour. Blake is Cavell’s right hand, if you will, and also my assigned guardian at the time. Blake had traveled back and forth between Nates and Lyon, two of our neighboring cities, for a number of days now—though it was unclear to me what he’d been doing away from the manor for so long. I hoped to find out.
Cavell went on to say that he’d received a rather disturbing letter from Blake. The letter inferred that something remarkably dangerous had fallen into the hands of the humans and that he insisted on speaking to Cavell the moment he returned from his travels.
As was his way of sneaking up, something he seemingly enjoyed, Blake swiftly made his entrance. Instead of including me in on the conversation, Cavell asked Blake if they could speak in private, and they excused themselves. I admit, I was angered that he didn't invite me to listen in on something like this. So, I snuck out behind them. High on the roof of our manor and hidden at a safe distance behind the armory wall, I listened in.
“Tell me what’s happened in the human world that needs my attention so,” Cavell ordered of Blake.
“I don’t know of a suitable way to convey this to you, my Lord,” Blake began. “It’ll be hard to hear. Very profound weap
ons, ones that are responsible for the death of several vampires, have fallen into the hands of the humans. They are calling them the ‘Soleil Dagger’ and the ‘Lumière Dagger’, and they are quickly becoming a threat to us. The humans have dabbled in some sort of craft, it seems. They’ve created these daggers with the ability to kill vampires, Lord Cavell. Some of my men have seen the daggers in action.”
“How is this possible?” Cavell asked Blake.
"We caught word of a Catholic priest in the area making some rather strange requests. In time, he had these daggers forged by a blacksmith and his witch wife. We've been watching the priest to make sure the weapons weren't functional. Yet just last night, the priest came under attack by a rogue vampire group. He took one swing at them with these weapons, and the vampires erupted into flames, literally perishing before the eyes of my men! I advise we have these weapons confiscated as swiftly as possible before one of our own falls victim."
“You’ll have to excuse me”—Cavell cleared his throat—“but I never fathomed that the humans could create weapons against us.”
“I just hope the rest of that race doesn’t catch on to it,” Blake said, his voice tense as he spoke. “Imagine if every human carried a weapon like this. We’d never be able to hunt with a threat so colossal. We’d wither up.”
“Yes. I agree, of course,” Cavell responded. “I think it wise to be rid of these daggers. Are you sure there are only two in existence?”
“As far as we know, yes.”
“Good. Have them brought to Latresma. She can destroy them. Her incantations should be strong enough to disenchant them and work against whatever human craft was used to curse them in the first place.”
I should explain. I’m the only vampire, who I’m aware of, able to use what the vampires call “the Lost Craft”, an ancient artistry created by an elder vampire long before my time. Possibly, it ran in my bloodline. When I was little, my mother practiced a light witchcraft and encouraged me to use it. However, as a little human girl, it scared me. I never attempted to learn it. But the complacency that sometimes comes along with living forever was what brought on my curiosity to finally study it years and years after my mother had passed…after I was turned. I became fascinated with it and read many texts brought in per my request from various nations. Incidentally, I found that I could use the craft, not just read about it. My abilities grew far beyond what I'd ever imagined as I continued studying, creating and casting spells.