Asylum

by K. A. Tucker

  Leo opened his mouth to speak, then clamped it shut as his eyes darted to Julian.

  “I’ve told Julian everything,” I blurted, earning a loud grumble of disapproval from Max.

  Leo’s grim face indicated his agreement with my disgruntled canine. “Of course you have, silly girl,” he muttered, exasperation in his voice. “You’ve learned nothing! I think you may be allergic to secrecy.”

  “Yes, I have learned!” I retorted, defiantly thrusting out my chin. I certainly had learned about the advantages of keeping secrets from vampires and witches. “But look at him!” I threw my hand out to point at Julian, who now squirmed uncomfortably on the couch as we discussed him. “He’s a human. He’s harmless.”

  Leo’s mouth curved in a condescending smirk. “You assume humans are harmless?”

  “No, but . . . ” I stumbled over my words. In the end, there was only one answer I could give: the one that made sense. “He has a right to know. Just as I did.”

  Sympathy smoothed Leo’s frown. With a slight nod, he settled into the tawny leather chair beside the fire. Julian and I waited in silence as he pulled his pipe out from his vest’s inner pocket. He took his time unraveling the small burgundy packet of tobacco and tapping the corner of it on the edge of his pipe, filling its bowl.

  My patience finally ran out. “So, about Sofie. Have you heard from her?” I pressed.

  Leo paused and finally shook his head, concern filling his gray eyes.

  “Well, can’t you send her a message?” I turned to Julian, now sitting on the couch. “They can talk to each other through some sort of communication spell Sofie set up years ago when she was helping—”

  “No. I can’t,” Leo cut me off, scowling his annoyance.

  I bit my lip, silently admonishing myself. Leo and Sofie’s relationship was a private story that Leo had entrusted me with, I realized. Maybe I am allergic to secrets! Only I didn’t know it was a secret . . . “Helping him with something,” I finished vaguely.

  Leo held a match to his pipe, then spoke through a cloud of smoke as he puffed it alight. “A few hours ago, Sofie reached out to me, only she slammed the connection shut before I could get a response to her.”

  I frowned. “Why would she do that?”

  He lifted an eyebrow. “And you finally ask an interesting question. Why, indeed?”

  “Well, ask her!”

  Leo shook his head. “There are rules, my dear Evangeline. Rules imposed by Sofie, and I dare not cross that fiery woman. Sofie’s extremely paranoid, especially when it comes to you. I learned long ago never to question her.” He took another puff on his pipe before he continued. “She warned me not to communicate to her if anything seemed suspicious. Abruptly cutting off communication like that is suspicious. Under no circumstances am I to initiate a message chain now. I can only respond once she’s reached out to me.”

  “Well, did you guys agree on a schedule, at least?”

  “Of course.”

  “So can’t you . . . ” I trailed off. What could he do, given the limitations Sofie had imposed? I felt my shoulders slump with disappointment, then tense as panic set in.

  Leo sighed heavily. “Look . . . I’m going to tell you everything I know because I think you can handle it and because you’ve been lied to enough for one lifetime.” He paused again as he fumbled with his pipe. “If she hasn’t sent a message by now, something’s very wrong.”

  His words lost no meaning with me. Not just wrong; very wrong. That brought me from lying lazily on the couch to perching on its edge, my blanket forgotten on the floor. I barely felt the draft in the air though; my stomach had dropped to my feet. “What does that mean? Is she dead? Are they dead?”

  “That would be too easy,” Julian mumbled.

  “They’re my friends!” I snapped at him, his callous remark pricking me. I had no valid reason to expect his compassion for them, but he could show me some.

  Julian’s brown eyes softened and he bowed his head. “Sorry.”

  I turned back to see Leo vehemently shaking his head. “No, I’d know if she were dead. I’d feel the connection break.”

  “And what about Caden? Is he dead? And Amelie? What about Bishop and Fiona?” My voice rose in pitch as I fired names at him. “They are! She doesn’t want to tell me!” Up until now, knowledge that they were safely in New York City, on the same planet as me, had brought me a security blanket of comfort. But Leo’s ambiguity was wrenching that blanket from my grasp.

  Leo’s forehead creased as he shook his head. “No, no. Don’t get all worked up. I don’t think that’s it.”

  “Well, then why?”

  “Like I said, I don’t know, Evangeline,” Leo repeated calmly.

  I gripped the edge of the couch and stared at Leo, my stomach twisting with near-hysteria. “So send her a message!” I demanded. “How mad can she get?” The wrinkles on Leo’s forehead twisted as he arched an eyebrow at my insistence, and I dropped my gaze to my hands, feeling like a child being scolded. “What’s the big deal, anyway?” I muttered defiantly. “It’s not like they can find me here, right?”

  “Who? Viggo? No.” Leo shook his head, then dropped his voice. “But I’m sure towns and cities all over the world are being scoured at this very moment as he hunts for you. There are people turning over every location connected to Sofie. And they will not stop. Not until they’ve found you or they’ve all died off from old age.”

  The buttery taste the popcorn had left in my mouth suddenly turned rancid as I absorbed the implications of Leo’s words. Viggo was hunting me like an animal. And the end result would be much the same, if they found me. Suddenly this mountain was not remote enough. The trees were not numerous enough, the snow not deep enough; the cabin was so brightly lit, it was a shining beacon, visible from outer space. I had the urge to take an ax to the cables connecting the generators to the cabin and throw us into medieval times—anything that could help hide us from a two thousand-year-old vampire on his eternal mission to get this pendant off my neck.

  My horror must have been written all over my face, because Leo rushed to calm me. “Not to worry, dear girl. They can’t possibly find you here unless they somehow . . . ” Leo’s voice drifted off in a chuckle that faded as a thought struck him. His expression suggested impossibility had become possibility. “Well, not unless they could trace the link to the spell.” He stroked his chin with a wrinkled hand, deep in thought.

  A chill ran down my spine. “And who would help them do that?” I asked slowly.

  Another puff of his pipe, this one long. I noticed that Julian was hanging off the couch beside me now as well, his attention riveted to Leo. We locked eyes for a moment and he offered a sympathetic smile.

  The old man finally spoke. “My kind. A highly skilled sorcerer. Or sorceress.”

  I swallowed around a painful lump suddenly filling my throat and asked weakly, “You can do that sort of thing?”

  Leo chuckled. “Me? No. I can’t. But . . . I wouldn’t put it past someone to figure it out.” He snorted. “And of course Viggo would find that witch. He’s resourceful, that one.”

  I remembered Sofie’s earlier words about witches and vampires. “I thought your kind hated their kind. Where does Viggo keep finding these witches to help him?”

  He nodded. “They do hate vampires. Yes. So much that they’ll do anything to rid the world of them.” He leaned forward to inspect the fire. I recognized it as a sign that he was going to launch into a story. “Don’t you ever wonder how vampires were created?”

  “I haven’t gotten to that point yet. I’m still stuck at the fact that they exist,” I answered dryly. I heard Julian’s low chuckle beside me.

  “Fair enough.” Leo’s head bobbed in understanding as he leaned back into his chair. “We created them. My kind. Vampires are the result of a Causal Enchantment.”

  I don’t know why this shocked me, given everything I’d seen lately, but it did. I realized my jaw was hanging open and slowly closed m
y mouth. Julian leaned forward beside me, his elbows on his knees, hanging on the old warlock’s every word. Words that so few would ever hear.

  Leo grinned, clearly enjoying our reaction. “About five thousand years ago, a sorceress was searching for eternal youth and immortality for herself. She started messing around with that dark magic. The Fates. Nasty business, I tell you. Anyone who gets involved with them is absolutely crazy.” Leo scowled. “Anyway, they granted her Causal Enchantment. They gave her eternal youth and immortality.” The ghost of a smug smile touched Leo’s mouth. “All she needed to do was drink blood. She became the first vampire, the most unexpected outcome of a spell. And the witches have been trying to correct that mistake ever since.” He added under his breath, “Creating all kinds of other disasters along the way.”

  “The first vampire was a witch?” I whispered in disbelief. “So was she like Sofie? With powers? What happened to her?”

  “Oh, my kind isn’t privy to that much detail. She was ostracized as soon as the transformation happened. It’s said she held on to a few of her powers, but I don’t know. We think Viggo knows, but he won’t tell Sofie. It’s his one secret over her.”

  Of course he knew. Viggo was now the oldest vampire, but he hadn’t always been the oldest vampire. I didn’t doubt that he had something to do with this first vampire’s death. He was such a conniving monster. I shuddered, imagining him storming through the side door at that moment. If I never saw him again, I’d be happy. Mortimer . . . I didn’t fear him as much, not since he’d dropped his mask for that millisecond in the atrium that day. I knew without a doubt that he’d still kill me to get to the pendant, but I also knew he wouldn’t take sadistic pleasure in it. That brought me some small level of comfort. “So do you think they’d actually trust another one?”

  He shrugged, sighing loudly. “Who knows? I should suspect not, given the last ‘arrangement’ Viggo made, but who can say, with that psychopath? When he’s desperate, he gets reckless.” Bitterness tinged his voice.

  I thought a moment. “So if he did find a witch to help him and Sofie doesn’t send you messages, then no one finds me and everything’s fine, right?”

  Leo’s laughter rang hollow. “Yes. For us, everything’s peachy.”

  I frowned. I didn’t understand this old man’s sense of humor sometimes.

  Leo sighed. “There are a few other issues that could be . . . distracting her.”

  My stomach did another sickly dive to my feet. “Other issues besides witches?”

  Leo nodded. “Remember that day in Central Park? When you were attacked?”

  “Yeah, I seem to recall something.” I glanced sideways at the dogs as another memory flashed in my mind—this one of the mutt Badger’s decapitated head. I shuddered.

  “Those men with Ursula . . . they weren’t just hired thugs,” Leo explained. “They were hired ‘People’s Sentinel’ thugs.”

  I felt my forehead crease as I wracked my memory for something to link to the name. No bells. “Have you mentioned them before?”

  Leo groaned heavily. “Why must I be the one to explain everything? The People’s Sentinel is a long-standing secret society of humans fighting for humankind against vampires. Against anything nonhuman, actually. Even against witches. They’ve existed for thousands of years now. You heard of women burned for being witches?” Julian and I nodded in unison. “The handiwork of the Sentinel. In the past, their society numbered in the thousands. Then they fell into the background like a sleeper cell, where they’ve remained for several hundred years. Only now they’ve resurfaced and they’re stronger than ever. We’re not sure how many are involved. Mortimer and Viggo had been lying low for years while this mess with Veronique was getting settled—hence the Foreros’ involvement. However, we’ve started seeing them around again.”

  “Well, if they hate the witches so much, why would they have been working with Ursula? Are you sure it was them? Maybe you’re mistaken.”

  Leo leaned over and gestured to the meaty part of his hand. “Because they brand themselves with tattoos on their hand. The markings look like deformed crosses.”

  Leo’s words jarred forth a memory. A deceptively nice old gentleman’s hand. And on it, a curved cross tattoo. “I saw it!” I confirmed.

  “They all have them. Stupid, really. It marks them immediately for what they are. Vampires can spot them a mile away.”

  “What happened to these people who attacked you in Central Park?” Julian asked.

  “Oh, Max and the others got hold of them.” My eyes closed and I shuddered, trying to shake that gruesome bloodbath from my memory. “But these Sentinel people would have killed me otherwise.”

  “Oh . . . ” Julian murmured. He looked at Max. “Good.”

  Maybe he isn’t a complete nitwit after all, Max grumbled, earning an eye roll from me.

  Leo continued. “The only reason Viggo and Mortimer have restrained themselves from hunting down the Sentinel up until now is because of Veronique. The moment she is out and transformed, they will go on a mission to rid the world of every last one. I guarantee you that.”

  And I’ll be there with fangs on! Max chirped eagerly in my head. Not one of them will survive.

  “Easy, Max. That won’t be for a while.”

  “What’d he say?” Julian asked, his brown eyes shifting between me and Max.

  “Oh,” I reached over to scratch behind Max’s ear, “anyone with a Sentinel tattoo pretty much has a death warrant with Max, here.”

  Julian hesitated, watching the dog. “I don’t blame him.” He looked back to Leo. “So . . . do you think they can win? This Sentinel group?”

  “They’re only human. What could they possibly do against an army of vampires?” I answered before Leo could.

  When I glanced at the old man for confirmation, his eyebrow arched. “Oh, I don’t know,” he drawled. “How about starting a war that obliterates all of humankind? Sound familiar?”

  My eyes went wide and I gasped. Ratheus. A war between humans and vampires. He was right. How could I have forgotten about that? I was so wound up with my own situation that I hadn’t connected the dots.

  “They likely wouldn’t,” Leo continued, trying to mollify me. “The easier thing for the Sentinel to do is bomb the Manhattan building. That would eliminate ninety-five percent of the vampires on Earth. They’d just have to pluck off a few more . . . ”

  I felt the blood drain from my face as a vivid image sprang into my mind of Viggo and Mortimer’s palace exploding—with Caden and the others trapped inside. If Caden died, if Sofie died, I’d have no one left. The very thought forced tears to my eyes.

  “Oh, Evangeline, I’m sorry,” Leo exclaimed, softening at the sight of my distress. “I don’t mean to sound blithe. I highly doubt that’ll happen. As long as the Sentinel is left in the dark about what’s going on inside those walls and about the venom issue, there’s no reason they’d do something so drastic.”

  “But what if they find out?”

  “Who’s going to tell them? No one,” Leo assured me, adding sarcastically, “You’re here. Otherwise I’d be worried.” I answered with an irritated scowl. Now was not the time for teasing.

  “Is that what happened on this Ratheus?” Julian asked me softly. Despite the detail I had gone into earlier that day, I hadn’t gotten into specifics about Ratheus with him. I wasn’t in any mood to explain those details now, with my body numb, my heart aching. So I simply nodded. “Humans against vampires. The humans lost. They can’t win,” I said, my voice hollow.

  The room fell quiet as we all absorbed the full weight of the situation. Well, what we thought may be the situation. Julian shifted around on the couch as if unable to get comfortable. He likely wouldn’t be able to—most people become overly sensitive when words like “war” get thrown around.

  Finally Julian did speak. “So, how do we stop this from happening?”

  “We can’t do anything, up here in the mountains. Absolutely nothing.” Le
o paused. “Sofie needs to keep the Sentinel calm and the witches uninvolved, for starters. We can’t let any of them know what’s going on inside those walls. Nothing about the venom issue.”

  “Right,” Julian murmured, adding slowly, “because if they can kill all these Ratheus vampires in New York in one blow, no more could be created.”

  “Right,” Leo confirmed. “They’d likely attack with full force, trying to eradicate the lot of them before they could create more.”

  “In fact, from Earth’s standpoint, it would be best if they did do it. Because then there would be no retaliation. The general population would likely never even find out vampires exist,” Julian surmised.

  No wonder he’s in med school. He’s catching on way faster than I ever did, I thought, even as despair flooded into me. They were talking about my friends and Sofie and why killing them would save the world. No . . . that couldn’t happen. There had to be another way.

  “And what happens if this Sentinel and the witches don’t find out? If everyone’s all happy and quiet, no one kills anyone?” Julian asked Leo.

  “The Sentinel isn’t going away. Not unless they’re all hunted down and killed. The witches certainly aren’t going anywhere. Whether they fight now or fight later, it’s . . . inevitable. But if they fight later . . . once the vampires are released and able to breed more vampires to build an army . . . ” Leo shook his head. “Not good.”

  “Ratheus will happen,” I whispered. I dropped my forehead into my palms. This conversation had gone from horrible to catastrophic. My friends were never going to live in quiet peace, even after they conquered their blood lust. After everything they’d been through, after a war and seven hundred years of waiting, the course of their lives could now possibly repeat itself. “Are we doomed, Leo? I mean, is this our fate? Are we destined to end up like Ratheus?” I asked, barely above a whisper.