Bloodlines

by Lindsay Anne Kendal

“That is up to you.”

  “I need to take my mind of things,” I said. “I’m going down to the room we found; I’m going to see what I can find out.”

  “Do you mind if I just go to bed.”

  “Not at all.”

  We said good night and I headed back down to the stone room. This time I took candles with me. I put them around the room and lit them, before gathering some of the papers and putting them on the table.

  “Time to understand what’s at play here,” I said aloud.

  I started making my way through the papers. I was only interested in finding information on what was in me and how it got there. All Elizabeth said was it was a ‘she’. Anything else that was written I could read another time. After about half an hour of skimming the papers I found something. It read:

  Tonight will be the night, of that I am certain, for I have made all the necessary preparations and done all I can to please her. Maybe now she will bestow her power on me. If not, all I have done, all I have lost, will have been for nothing…

  “What did you do?” I asked aloud. “Who is she?”

  I carried on looking through the papers, for hours it seemed. Then I found a piece that was only just readable. Some of the words I couldn’t make out:

  I know who she is. Could she really ——— on earth ——— me the power. Would I be lucky enough for her to pick me ——— saw her, she was beautiful beyond belief ——— spoke to me, she told me what I must do.

  I will do it.

  “Do what?” I shouted. I was getting frustrated now. “I want to know what you did; I want to know who she is.”

  I slouched across the stone table resting my head on my arms and closing my eyes for a moment.

  When I opened my eyes I was lying on the bed in my room. I looked at the clock, it was twelve noon. I got up and quickly got washed and changed before heading downstairs and into the living room.

  “Hey, sleepy head,” Lily said.

  “Hey,” I replied. Jake and Tyler were in there with her. “How did I get upstairs?” I asked.

  “I carried you up,” Tyler said.

  “I found you down in the cellar, as I’m now calling it,” Lily said. “I didn’t think I would be able to get in there though, what with you putting a spell on it.”

  “As long as I am there you can come down. If you’d have tried and I wasn’t down there, well, you might have got hurt. Put it that way,” I told her.

  “Charming. Anyway, I popped my head around the door and you were surrounded by papers. I assumed you’d had a late night. Not long after Tyler turned up asking for you. When I told him where you were he went down, got you, and took you upstairs.”

  “Thanks, Tyler,” I smiled.

  “Did you find anything interesting,” Jake asked.

  “I found out how easily frustrated I can get,” I half laughed, sitting down next to Tyler. “There’s so much down there, but it’s not all about how she got the power and who it’s from. So I had to start sifting through everything.”

  “Didn’t you find anything?” Tyler asked.

  “I never said that,” I smirked. “I know Elizabeth knew exactly who she was summoning, I also know she saw and spoke with whoever it is before the night she got her power.”

  “Wow!”

  “But I still don’t know who gave it to her, or what she had to do to get it.”

  “Elizabeth told you that you would find it written in there. So bear with it,” Lily said.

  “I’m trying,” I told her. “I’m going to make something to eat and then I’m going back down. Are the others coming around?”

  “Later on, probably about sixish – they’re doing something with Danny’s dad,” Jake told me.

  “Ok.”

  I went into the kitchen, put the kettle on and stuck a few pieces of bread in the toaster. I heard the kitchen door close and turned to see Tyler standing there.

  “Hey, thanks for taking me upstairs,” I said.

  “You’re welcome. Listen, Keira, last night…”

  “Tyler, can we not do this?” I asked as I pulled the toast out and started to butter it. “I’ve got a lot on my mind.”

  “So have I, thanks to you!” he shot, walking towards me. “I need you to talk to me. I hardly slept last night.”

  “Why?”

  “Because of what you said.”

  “I said a lot yesterday,” I said, making a cup of coffee. “Do you want a drink?”

  “No thanks, I’m fine. You said you weren’t letting me down.”

  “Did I?” I asked, trying to make out that I couldn’t recall saying it.

  “Fine, forget it!” he said and walked out of the kitchen.

  “Tyler!” I half shouted, but he didn’t come back.

  I took a deep breath before carrying my breakfast over to the breakfast bar.

  Once I’d eaten I went to tell the others I was going back down to the cellar. Tyler wasn’t with them, but his car was still outside, so I knew he hadn’t left.

  “Where’s Tyler?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. He came in a few minutes ago then walked back out. He looked upset,” Lily told me.

  “Will you tell him where I’ve gone if he comes back please?”

  “No problem,” they said.

  I made my way back to the stone room and lit the candles again. I looked at all the papers and sighed.

  “Well, no point just staring at you,” I sighed, as though they could hear me. I sat down and started reading again. After tossing aside some spells, I found something interesting:

  I left this morning; I didn’t leave a note or tell a soul I was leaving. I have only the clothes on my back and a little bag of money I took from my father’s room. I hope they do not worry too much when they wake and find me gone. I cannot stay in a house run by a man of god, not if I want her to give me the power, and after all that was part of the deal.

  “So your father must have been a priest,” I muttered, looking at the plain stone wall facing me.

  “Who’s?” I heard Lily say.

  I turned to see her walk in the room.

  “Wow, it’s dark down here,” she said, looking around her. “So whose father was a priest?” She asked as she sat on the stone facing me.

  “Elizabeth’s. She left her home so that she would see “Her” again.”

  “Do you know who “Her” is yet?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Want some help?” She asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Good, I’ll send Tyler down,” she said, getting up and making her way to the door. “I don’t know what you’ve said to him, but he’s not the happy smiley person we all know and love any more. He’s getting on my nerves, he won’t tell us what’s wrong, so you can have him!”

  I watched her disappear down the tunnel. I didn’t even get time to reply to her. I put the papers down for a moment and started to worry about Tyler.

  “Go and help her!” I faintly heard Jake telling him. “Lily said she’s got a lot to go through down there; she needs help. It’s not like you not to want to do something with her.”

  “Fine,” I heard him reply.

  I picked the papers up again quickly and pretended not to hear him walking in.

  “Lily said you wanted help,” he said bluntly.

  “I thought she meant she was going to help me.”

  “I’ll go then.”

  “Tyler…” I said, turning to look at him.

  “Just…don’t.”

  “I could do with some help. I just meant that, when Lily offered help, I thought she’d be the one doing it, that’s all.”

  He paused for a moment before coming and sitting in front of me.

  “What do you want me to do?” he asked.

  “Grab some papers and start reading. If you find anything other than spells, let me know.”

  He nodded and gathered up some of the papers, then sat back down and started reading through them. I did the same. Any
thing I had found up to that point I had kept separate so I could always refer back to them and eventually put them in some sort of order.

  “I think I might have something,” he said after a while and passed me a tattered piece of paper. “I can’t make it all out though.”

  It read:

  I now sit here waiting, I feel sick to my stomach. Nerves I suppose. I keep thinking ——— her coming, but it’s just the wind ——— trees. I should feel frightened I think ——— calm ——— so long for this moment, I know ——— be disappointed…

  “Another piece of the puzzle,” I told him.

  He just carried on reading through more papers. He didn’t even look at me.

  “Tyler, did you hear me?”

  “I heard you,” he said, not looking away from the papers.

  I shook my head and carried on again.

  “Yes!” I shouted so loud Tyler actually jumped. “Listen to this!” I told him, reading it out:

  It is done. It happened a lot quicker than I thought. I thought it would hurt. But to my surprise, it didn’t. I stood before her ——— blood fell into the chalice, filling it halfway, she held it out to me and I took it from her. I put it to my lips, then I closed my eyes and drank it. She held her hand in front of her, a purple and black ——— from her fingers and into me. I felt no pain. Just tingling throughout my body ——— stood up in front of her and smiled. She smiled ——— she disappeared…

  “The rest is unreadable,” I told him.

  “I don’t know what to say,” he said, staring at me now. “Wow!”

  “Wow, doesn’t even come close,” I was getting excited now. “Can you imagine what that must have felt like?”

  “No.”

  “Now I just need to find out who “She” is.”

  “I come bearing gifts,” Lily said as she entered the room with two cups of coffee. “I thought you might be thirsty.”

  “Thank you,” I smiled.

  “Have you found anything?” She asked.

  “Just…” Tyler began.

  “Nothing but clues, nothing to actually explain anything,” I interrupted.

  “Oh hell, are you sure she said you’d find it here? Are you sure you didn’t mishear her?”

  “I don’t think so. I hope not after all this.”

  “Well, I’ll leave you to it. Good luck.”

  I waited until she was out of sight then shut the door.

  “Why didn’t you tell her?” Tyler frowned.

  “I don’t want any of them knowing what I’ve just told you,” I said seriously.

  “Why?”

  “Elizabeth said I could win whatever is going on if I was clever. She told me to make sure whatever it is never found out what was inside me. If everyone finds out and mentions it innocently up there, something might hear.”

  “Why can’t it find out?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe so I can surprise it, frighten it, beat it… I’ll tell them everything once it’s over, ok?”

  He didn’t say anything. I knelt down in front of him and he looked me in my eyes.

  “Tyler, please keep this to yourself.”

  “Why tell me if you don’t want people to know?”

  “I trust you.”

  “I thought you trusted them?”

  “I do, but I trust you more. I feel closer to you than the others, that’s why I let loose a little in front of you,” I told him.

  “Ok, I don’t know anything.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Let’s see if we can find out who “She” is,” he said, turning away from me.

  “How long are you going to keep being funny with me?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” he said as he grabbed his drink and started reading again.

  We stayed down there until Lily shouted at us to let us know dinner was ready. We walked to the dining room in silence.

  “I hope you’re hungry; I cooked enough for six, but Danny just called to let us know they wouldn’t be able to get around. Their still helping his dad,” Lily told us.

  “Fair enough,” I said, sitting down.

  “So are you in a better mood now?” Jake asked Tyler.

  “I’m fine,” he replied.

  “That means no,” Lily shook her head. “Did you find anything, Keira?”

  “Nope, just that her father was a priest and that she left home to be able to get her power. She couldn’t have them while she lived in a house with a priest.”

  “Wow, it must have been some demon then,” Jake said.

  “Yeah, well, when I know, you’ll know.”

  Tyler looked up at me for a moment when I said that.

  “Are you going back down after dinner?” Lily asked.

  “Yeah, but only for half an hour or so; I thought we could try out the new pool table.”

  “Sounds good, but I warn you, I’m good at it,” Jake said.

  “So am I, and you can’t cheat,” I told him.

  “I don’t need to,” he shot back.

  “I mean it.”

  “So do I!”

  After dinner Jake said he would clean up so Tyler and I could go back down. Once again Tyler was silent. It was really upsetting me now; he’d never been like this with me before. We sat down and started reading again; we had been down there only twenty minutes when my eyes lit up.

  “Oh my god, I’ve found it!” I told him, standing up with the paper in my hands.

  “What does it say?”

  I don’t know how but I knew how to use the power inside me instantly. I played with it in the woods for half an hour before I had to get back to the tavern I’m renting the room in. I set things on fire, I created storms, raised the temperature and lowered it again, I rose from the ground like I was weightless…what else will I be able to do? I can’t wait to find out. Thank you, oh thank you, I promise you when the time comes I will keep to my end of the bargain. Thank you so much, Lilith.

  “Lilith!” Tyler gasped in shock.

  “Yes.”

  “But isn’t she…?”

  “The queen,” I confirmed.

  “In Hell!”

  “Yes.”

  Suddenly I stopped being so excited. Tyler’s face was filled with shock, disbelief and fear. I started to walk over to him; he shot up out of his seat and backed away from me quickly. I stopped in my tracks, sadness and hurt appearing on my face.

  “Ouch,” I almost cried. “…that hurt!” I lowered my head and turned away from him. “I thought you didn’t care what was in me. You obviously didn’t mean that.”

  He didn’t respond. Then I felt his arms wrap around me and his head rest on my shoulder.

  “I’m sorry, it just…shocked me. It’s not every day you hear someone tell you she is related to the queen of Hell,” he said. “I don’t care what’s in you – you’re still you.”

  “I’m not related,” I corrected, turning to face him.

  “Her blood runs through your veins, her power is in you. You’re connected to her – somehow.”

  “Come on you two!” We heard Jake shout. “You’ve been down there longer than half an hour; we’re waiting for you.”

  “We’re coming,” Tyler shouted back. “Set the table up.”

  “Ok, hurry up.”

  “Look, let’s just go and be normal; we can talk about this tomorrow. We’ll go out somewhere on our own again,” he said. “Somewhere no one will hear us.”

  “Like where? The only place safe enough to talk about this is down here.”

  “Well, then we’ll come back here.”

  I agreed with him and we went to find Lily and Jake in the games room.

  Chapter 21

  Surrounded

  “Are we playing doubles?” Jake asked.

  “Yeah, sure,” I said.

  “I’m with you,” Tyler said, passing me a cue.

  Jake was right; he was a very good player, but I was good too. After four games we were tied.

  “Ok, b
est of five,” I said.

  “You’re on,” Jake and Lily said.

  It was a very quick game and much to Jake’s and Lily’s disgust, Tyler and I won.

  “Ha!” I laughed. “Looks like we’re the better players.”

  “Oh shut up, I bet you cheated,” Lily said.

  “Rubbish, just admit defeat.”

  “Never!” She laughed.

  “Feel like a beer anyone?” Jake asked, going to the bar.

  We all got a drink, turned the music on and sat on the black leather sofas facing the pool table.

  “Shame the others aren’t here, we could have kicked their ass’s too,” I smirked at Tyler.

  “Oh shut up,” said Lily again, throwing one of the cushions from the sofa at me. “We’ll beat you next time.”

  “It’s nice to be able to chill out like this,” Jake said before taking a mouthful of his drink. “Remind me to have a room like this when I get my own place.”

  “I love this house,” I told him. “I’m so glad I decided to move in.”

  “So are we.”

  “Are you two ok?” Lily asked, looking at me and Tyler in turn.

  “We’re fine,” Tyler said plainly. “Why wouldn’t we be?”

  “Ok, once again that means no. Come on, Jake,” she said, standing up.

  “Where you off to?” I asked.

  “We’re going to leave you two to talk. You obviously need to, so don’t come down until your both smiling again.”

  She grabbed Jake’s hand and led him out of the room closing the door behind them. There was no point in arguing with her, her mind was made up.

  Tyler sat there staring in front of him.

  “What’s wrong with you?” I asked him as I turned to face him.

  “Nothing.”

  “Why won’t you look at me?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe I don’t want to.”

  “Fine, this is a waste of time!” I said, getting up.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Out.”

  “Where?”

  “For a drive.”

  As I started to open the door he jumped in front of me.

  “What?” I said impatiently.

  “How can you ask me what’s wrong?” he started. “Like you don’t already know.”

  “What do you want me to say to you, Tyler?”

  “Just answer me one question,” he said, looking into my eyes. “Should I try to stop liking you so much?”