by Aja James
And yet, ten feet beneath earth and stone at the bottom of the pit was this ancient tube made of bronze containing three scrolls written in blood.
One of them was a map, with a path clearly drawn through key cities in several ancient empires, most of which were in ruins today, and some of which were buried beneath modern metropolises, long forgotten. This was what Cloud used to reconstruct the three-dimensional holographic projection they peered at now.
Sophia nodded in answer to Cloud’s question.
“Yes, but not to Bagdad itself. Between Ramadi and Fallujah,” she said decidedly.
Ere gave her a strange look but didn’t comment.
These were not easy cities to trek across in modern times, given their situation in the middle of a warzone.
Sophia picked up on his skepticism and murmured, “Cloud will take care of it. No one will bother us.”
Despite being the only human within their group, and a human who didn’t know about Immortals, at that, Ere accepted the oddities and minor miracles performed by their small traveling troupe with unquestioning equanimity. If he suspected that his companions were not what they appeared to be, he never uttered a word about it.
Which made Cloud absolutely certain that the young college professor must have some interesting secrets of his own.
“But look,” Sophia pointed to a faint, narrow track that forked north from the path drawn on the map. “That line leads toward Asia Minor. Which one should we follow?”
“Perhaps the line is faint for a reason,” Ere said. “The obvious choice is to follow the bold track.”
Westward through Egypt.
“Why not do both?” Inanna suggested. “We are here to discover and explore, are we not? We can split into two groups and share images and videos as we go.”
“I like that idea,” Sophia nodded immediately. “You, Gabriel, Benji, Ere and I can take the bolded path, and Cloud, Eveline and Aella can take the northern path.”
“Perhaps we should try to decipher the scrolls again,” Ere pointed out. “Perhaps the directions are written therein.”
Sophia eyed him with consideration.
“You know you sound like you’re thousands of years old instead of what… twenty-six? Twenty-seven?”
Ere’s sensuous lips curled in a small smile.
“I must have spent too much time reading ancient texts. I am rather old-fashioned.”
“Do you even have a cell phone? Or use email?” Sophia teased.
“I’m perfectly adept at connecting with people using modern technology, as you well know, Sophia. But if not for expediency, I prefer letters,” he replied, making her grin as if he’d shared a joke that only the two of them understood.
They bantered back and forth for a while longer, lost in their own strangely flirtatious yet platonic repartee.
Meanwhile, Cloud considered his options, shutting off the projection.
He did not want to be separated from Sophia. Despite her carefree demeanor this morning, he sensed the Darkness spreading within her. Her moods swung more often, the ups not quite as high, the downs much lower and lasting much longer.
But he also knew in his core that he needed to follow the northern path, while Sophia continued to the west. At least Inanna, the Light Bringer, would go with her, even though the Dark One with a Pure soul did not know her purpose fully.
And Benji’s effervescent joy would help keep Sophia’s Darkness at bay.
Cloud knew it instinctively, what he must do…
And it was also thusly written in one of the two other scrolls they’d discovered. Written in a language no mortal had ever seen before. Or Immortal, for that matter.
But Cloud understood it.
After all, the scroll had been written specifically for him.
“There are stories that the witches tell…those old, toothless women shunned by good society for their mad ramblings. But there is truth in every story; the imagination is nothing more than fragments of memories from another time, another world. These stories talk of gods and goddesses, fantastical creatures beyond the human ken. They are real, all of them. And I am living proof…”
—From the secret journal of the Vampire Sorceress Circe
Chapter Two
“I don’t like it,” Aella said as soon as she was briefed on the plans. “Why didn’t you wait until I was back to discuss it together?”
“What’s the problem?” Sophia asked, truly curious, as she finished up her bread with honey and dusted off her hands on light-weight khakis.
They were the last to finish their breakfast. Their companions had already clustered into two groups and were preparing to depart on the journey ahead.
“I didn’t feel like it was a contentious decision. If we split up, we’ll cover more ground in less time.”
“What are we trying to accomplish here?” Aella asked more directly than she’d done thus far.
She supported Sophia in her self-exploration project. Hell, with that many incarnations to make sense of, anyone would want some personal time to get their head on straight.
But after two months of wandering around parts of what used to be the ancient Persian Empire, now mostly rubble and ruin, Aella questioned whether Sophia had a specific end goal in mind.
The young queen was silent for a long while, eyes downcast, gnawing on her lower lip, clearly indicating that she didn’t have ready answers.
Finally, she said, pausing every so often to gather her thoughts, “There’s a trigger…I have a trigger. I can feel it inside of me…This building tension.”
She looked up, but didn’t meet Aella’s eyes. Instead, her stare was unfocused as she gazed into the distance.
“There’s a version of me that can give strength to an entire people to overcome almost impossible odds. As the Pure Queen Ninti during the Akkadian Empire, I did that. I led the Pure Ones to freedom after Tal was captured.”
Aella nodded. This version of Sophia, the “Savior,” was exactly why the Dozen sought and brought her into their fold when Sophia was just a baby.
“But there’s also a version of me that is capable of tremendous Darkness and destruction. I was responsible for the death of tens of thousands of Persian and Egyptian citizens. I don’t recall what happened exactly; it’s as if I’ve blotted out that part of my memory. But I know what I did. I know how dangerous I am.”
She met Aella’s eyes then, and a very old soul within Sophia’s young body stared back at Aella through dilated, fathomless black pupils.
“I’m searching for answers, my friend,” Sophia said quietly. “The Zodiac Scrolls and Prophesies do not have them. What role am I supposed to play? Is it Savior or Destroyer? And if my Destiny is unpalatable—cuz, seriously, I refuse to be responsible for the world ending—”
At this, Sophia sounded more like her twenty-one year-old, fresh college-graduate self.
“—then I have to figure out how I can change it.”
“And if we don’t find the answers you’re looking for?” Aella asked, though she was afraid she already knew the answer.
“Then we end it.”
They both knew that Sophia meant: they would end her.
She would rather self-destruct than cause harm to innocents.
“You say that like it’s easy,” Aella pointed out, half teasing, half serious, “maybe we discover at the most inconvenient time that you’re indestructible.”
“Oh, I’m not, you don’t have to worry,” Sophia murmured. “I’ve obviously died before, to have had so many incarnations. Let’s just make sure I don’t take anyone else with me—any of the good guys anyway—when I go.”
Aella didn’t like the sound of “when.” It was as if Sophia already assumed the worst would happen.
“And you think you’ll find answers by retracing your past lives?” Aella got back to the topic at hand, unwilling to consider the possibility of Sophia’s…“end.”
The queen nodded slowly.
“My memories ar
e already starting to organize themselves in a more digestible way. At least the memories that have to do with my past life during ancient Persia. Being in these lands has reminded me of who I used to be. The sounds, sights, tastes, and smells are so familiar, even though it is thousands of years later.”
“And besides,” she added, “we found those three scrolls. I am certain they provide clues to the answers I’m seeking. If only we knew how to decipher the two scrolls with only symbols and words. At least the third scroll with the map we can easily read.”
“You’re a language guru,” Aella reminded both of them.
It was true. Sophia had an uncanny knack for being able to make sense of all kinds of oral and written languages, even long-dead ones.
“Do you think you can glean their meaning if you took some time to study them?”
“Perhaps,” Sophia allowed. “But those scrolls are not written in any language I’ve ever encountered before, not in any of my past lives either. What I can determine, however, is that they are not written in the same language. The symbols and patterns on the two scrolls are distinctly different.”
“I wonder whether Devlin Sinclair and Grace Darling from the Cove will be able to run them through an AI program to solve the mystery,” Aella mused, referring to two members of the Dark King, Ramses’, inner circle, their tentative allies in the Dark Ones’ New England headquarters.
“I wouldn’t send them the information until we have a good idea what the scrolls contain,” Sophia cautioned.
The Sophia before her Awakening would have been much more trustful of their allies. But this new Sophia was apparently a lot more politically savvy.
Aella agreed.
“All right. So we continue our journey in two separate groups. We’ll see this through, wherever you may lead us, oh fearless queen.”
Sophia quirked her lips.
“Hardly fearless,” she quipped. “I didn’t really know what I was doing before my Awakening, and I’m hardly any better afterwards. I just know that, one, we need to figure this whole Destroyer thing out.”
“And two?”
“I need my Dalair back.”
That went without saying. Dalair was Sophia’s trigger.
If Sophia had a demon within her just waiting to be unleashed, then Dalair was the switch to light her up from the inside out.
Or plunge her into voracious Darkness.
Aella had no doubt the Destroyer within Sophia was going to raze the world if Dalair was no longer in it.
Immediately upon learning of Dalair’s capture, Aella had launched a covert search for him through the Pure Ones’ Chevaliers, a small militia of both Pure Ones and humans who were trained against supernatural threats. Thus far, the search hadn’t turned up any concrete leads.
Meanwhile, their enemies had already used a turned Dalair to lead their armies against the animal spirits in Siberia, based on intel from the Chosen. And before that, Dalair had abducted Sophia. When Cloud and Aella rescued her, Aella believed that it was the stress of being separated from Dalair again that triggered Sophia’s Awakening.
Or part of the trigger, at the very least. Sophia never shared what had happened during her captivity.
“So, we spread out into two groups,” Aella rounded back to where she started the dialogue. “Will you have adequate protection? I can come with your group. Cloud can go with Eveline.”
Sophia eyed her shrewdly, not missing a beat.
“Ah. So that’s what this is all about.”
Aella frowned.
“What’s what all about?”
“You don’t want to go with Cloud. You’re afraid you can’t keep your hands off him,” Sophia taunted in an annoying sing-songy voice.
Her re-Awakened soul might be thousands of years old, but the childish part of her personality was still there. In spades.
“Excuse me, are you kidding? I’m always paired with Cloud. I’ve never had issues keeping my hands off him,” Aella argued.
Her hands were the best behaved hands in the whole of the female race. She should be sainted for the self-control she exhibited in Cloud’s vicinity.
Her mind, however… oh, the things she did to Cloud, with Cloud, in her dirty, perverted, sexually depraved and deprived mind…
They’d put the Kamasutra to shame.
“But you’ve never been exposed to him for such a long period of time before—”
“You make him sound like kryptonite to my Superman. Honestly, I’m more like Wonder Woman,” Aella muttered, but her erstwhile protégée ignored her.
“—and now with only Eveline as chaperone,” Sophia practically chortled. “We both know how Eveline isn’t always the most observant, with her head in the clouds or Goddess knows where.”
“I don’t need a chaperone,” Aella gritted out. “My proposal has nothing to do with being paired with Cloud.”
“Aww, you think you’ll miss me too much, chica,” Sophia teased, using the term of endearment Aella often applied to her.
But now that Sophia knew her soul was, in fact, older (and, as frequently argued by herself, therefore wiser, than Aella’s soul) she felt free to condescend to her “big sister.”
“Come on. Two Elite warriors traveling in unfamiliar lands with unknown threats is always better than one,” Sophia pointed out. “Look what happened to…”
Aella grew serious as Sophia’s teasing abruptly ended.
She was thinking of Dalair again, Aella knew. And how his lone mission ended with his capture and forced turning.
Aella knew Sophia had a point. And even if their group split up in a different configuration, Inanna, Gabriel and Benji were always a packaged deal. So that left Aella and Cloud to go with a second group.
“Maybe we should take Ere with our group,” Aella suggested, trying to get the focus off of her strange non-relationship with Cloud. “Even split.”
Sophia nodded.
“That could work. But Ere is here by my invitation. None of you know him well. I’d rather keep him with me. We have the most ‘human’ group between the two, after all.”
This was true. Gabriel, for example, was born human, just like Sophia, but turned into a vampire and Mated to Inanna. Because this happened only a few years ago, he was still “mostly” human. But the fact that he had a millennia-old Pure soul gave him the aura of a much older, and in his case, truly wiser, man.
Their son, Benji, was as human as could be, given that he was not biologically theirs. His mother, Gabriel’s late wife, was a human woman, though they didn’t know precisely which one of her male conquests contributed the sperm. Apparently, the man had been the great love or obsession of Olivia’s life, even after she married Gabriel.
“Come now, Sophia,” Aella said, keeping her gaze on the college professor in question as he chatted amicably with Inanna, “let’s not pretend our friend Ere isn’t peculiar, even if he is human. Which, I’m not entirely certain he is. Didn’t you mention he has a Pure soul?”
Sophia turned to study Ere as well.
As if sensing their eyes on him, the preternaturally beautiful young man smiled and waved at them, cocking his head at a flirtatious angle, squinting his thickly-lashed dark eyes against the desert sun.
“I’m not certain,” Sophia murmured in answer. “The colors of his soul seem frozen or distorted somehow. It’s the strangest thing.”
Aella narrowed her eyes and turned back to the woman who was her queen, but more importantly, the sister of her heart.
“All the more reason for us to keep a close eye on him. Perhaps he shouldn’t be traveling with you at all. He could be dangerous.”
“So am I,” Sophia returned so softly, Aella barely caught the words.
More loudly, she said, “That’s why I want to keep him with me. I want to learn more about him. My Gift is the ability to see Pure souls, after all.”
Her Gift, if one could call it such, was a lot more than that, but they both chose not to rehash the whole Destroyer thing.
“I see something special in Ere. If he is hiding anything, if he has secrets, I am the best person to uncover them.”
Aella held the young queen’s gaze for a long while, silently debating all the options in her head. She was the Strategist of the Pure Ones; she always planned several steps ahead. In this case, Sophia had made the most logical decision.
The time for Aella to guide her had come to an end. The queen was more than capable of taking the lead.
“Be careful,” she said finally.
“I will,” Sophia answered readily.
“And stay out of trouble.”
Sophia quirked her lips.
“That goes double for you, my friend.”
*** *** *** ***
Cloud urged Bai Long into an easy trot, staying a few lengths ahead of Aella and Eveline.
If not for Eveline, he and Aella could have moved at a much faster pace. They were both accustomed to long expeditions on horseback, whereas Eveline was obviously still getting the hang of it.
She never complained about being in a saddle day in and day out despite that most of her existence was spent indoors with books in a stationary position. But the months of traveling by traditional, four-legged means had taken a visible toll on her. She was a trooper though, and did her best to power through.
By going a bit in front, ahead of the females, Cloud could scope out any danger in advance. But also, he simply wanted to put distance between himself and Aella.
A call from the Shield came through on his wrist-com, and he responded by tapping on an almost invisible earpiece.
“Cloud.”
There was a slight pause on the other line.
“You sound stressed. Is Aella winding you up again?”
Cloud immediately relaxed several degrees when he heard Rain’s soothing voice, speaking in their native Mandarin.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he responded evenly.
“Right,” she drew the word out, clearly expressing her skepticism. “You don’t fool me, big brother. What happened?”
