Suddenly, Emily’s reason for being here became all the more clear. She wasn’t going to eradicate an entire race of people— she was going to turn them back into the people they once were before. Though, perhaps for many it would’ve been a fate far worse than death.
“Is this what the Temple of Prometheus is for?” Emily asked.
“It’s what the great sage, Mitra, once said,” Fiona explained, “Written in ancient scrolls that predate any other vampire codex on record. It speaks of the temple, although its location was never mentioned within the text. It’s one of the few gospels among our people. This one, in particular, chronicles what our people call Armageddon… the end of our way of life.”
Emily tried to form a coherent sentence, but was completely taken aback by Fiona’s revelation. How could Xander not have told her about these scrolls? Was there a reason for his deception, or was this another one of his calculated moves to shield her from enemies not yet clued in to her path? Whatever the reason, she was going to make sure that she found out for herself.
“Don’t you know of the scrolls?” Fiona asked with a look of shock, “You’re the summoner… how could you not have know?”
“I never had anyone to guide me,” Emily replied with thoughts going to her mother, long since absent and knowledgeable of the summoner ways.
“Surely Xander has shown you the scrolls,” Fiona said, “I mean, how could he not?”
“Yeah,” Emily said with a timid nod of her head, “Sure, he’s shown me them… of course he’s shown me.”
She was lying, but if these scrolls truly existed, then someone had gone to great lengths to make sure she hadn’t uncovered them. Nothing has added up since they arrived at House Franson, and now things seemed to make even less sense. Perhaps worse than the thought of being hunted by a paranormal horde, was that of being used by those closest to her.
Chapter Two
“C’mon, it’s got to be here, somewhere,” Emily said out loud as she rummaged through Xander’s belongings. “If I was a sacred and ancient scroll… where would I hide?”
She had been searching through Xander’s personal artifacts for almost an hour now, yet still hadn’t come close to uncovering anything of value. With enthusiasm waning, Emily was starting to gather that it would be easier to just reveal her findings to Xander.
Their crude and outdated ocean liner docked an hour or so ago and Xander had left with a small detachment of troops to secure what he called their second mode of transportation. Leave it to Xander, Emily thought, to make going out to steal a couple minivans sound all mysterious.
“Where the hell are we?” Emily asked herself as she glanced out the window, “Never been here before.”
When Xander had said they were returning to the Americas, she had always just assumed that meant going back to the good ol’ U.S.A. Heck, even Canada would’ve been acceptable; but what Emily saw she wasn’t in the least prepared for.
Lush jungle that stretched as far as the eye could see was mixed with pearly white sand and sparkling blue oceans. Her first thought was that it could’ve doubled for the summoner shores where she first met the image of her deceased mother, but it was impossible. Or at least it should’ve been.
She stared out the window for nearly ten minutes before someone opened the door and roused her from her trance. It was Xander, arms crossed and impatiently tapping his foot on the steel grated floor.
“Did you find what you were looking for?” Xander asked as he took a step forward.
“How do you know I was looking for something?” Emily returned with a question of her own, trying to by herself another moment as she searched for a plausible excuse.
“Usually, that’s what someone’s doing when they search a room unannounced.”
“Yeah,” Emily grumbled, “I guess that’s true.”
She wanted to confront him right then and there, but Emily knew she was on weak footing, having just been caught red-handed and unable to mount proper offense. No, Emily was going to have to play this differently if she wanted the truth— the real, incorruptible truth. She would need to coerce the information from him. That was the only way to get the truth, if she would be so willing to hear it.
“I’m not leaving until you tell me something,” Emily stated, “Anything… about who I am, or where we’re going.”
“We’re in the Amazon.”
“What?” Emily asked, “No shit, really?”
“Yes, really.”
Emily took the scrap of information and decided to press it no further. She would find the information she sought, but on her own terms and without the need for subversion. Xander was still a good man and she would give him the benefit of the doubt, if even just this one last time.
And then suddenly, a resemblance of the man he once was returned and he called Emily back as she was leaving his cabin. “Here, I believe this is what you were looking for.”
Xander tossed an iron casket into Emily’s direction. She barely managed to grapple on to it as he collided into her with a thud. It must’ve weighed fifty pounds and was incredibly awkward to carry, but something inside the casket resonated with the summoner and instilled her with the strength to carry it without burden.
“I hope you can forgive me for withholding it for so long,” Xander said, “I always planned on showing you this… I just needed to be sure that Lady Amata was no longer in your head.”
“What does it contain?” Emily asked.
“I was hoping you could tell me,” Xander replied, “Only a fraction of the scrolls were translated by the great sage, Mitra, the rest is nothing more than scribbles and what appears to be the mumblings of a madman.”
“Who is this Mitra, anyway?” Emily asked.
“No one knows,” Xander said, “Those scrolls are far older than I… and the few vampires that are old enough have long since withdrawn from the world. Truth be told, I believed him to be nothing more than a mixture of a hundred different stories all strewn together… and those scrolls, the work of myth and legend.”
“What changed?” Emily inquired, “When did you start believing that the summoner was real?”
“Costa Rica,” Xander said as he grabbed the satellite phone on the dresser, “Simeon showed me the scrolls while I attended one of his usual gatherings. There it was… displayed to all the most powerful and influential vampires of our generation… the proof that the summoner existed and that their downfall had been prophesied. Panic broke out among our kind, and after thousands of years, my people once again began to hunt for the summoners. This time, however, there was only one summoner to be found.”
“My mother,” Emily answered.
“Indeed,” Xander said, “And with her final breath, she transferred that power to you.”
“Come,” continued Xander, motioning towards the door, “We should go.”
As if she had opened it a thousand times before, Emily unlocked the many mechanisms around the casket’s seal with little trouble. As her fingers lingered on the parchments inside, she was pulled back by Xander and urged out of his room and to the upper deck.
“How did you find this place?” Emily asked, “If it’s been so elusive over the years, why are you the first one to find it?”
“In fact, I’m not the one who found the Temple of Prometheus,” said Xander with a mischievous smile, “That honor also goes to my late master… although he never truly understood what he’d found. It took him decades to comb this jungle, and then one day he found it. Only the bloody fool didn’t recognize the signs and ploughed on through the rest of the jungle. He was the strongest, most intelligent man I’ve ever known, but he wasn’t bright. The writing was on the walls, there for him to see, but with no question asked of him, he faltered to see the answer, right there in front of his face.”
Xander opened a large steel hatch and the two exited onto the upper deck where a helicopter awaited them on the bow of the vessel. All the vampires and ghouls left in Xander’s care amounted to no
more than thirty men, but they stood strong for their master, so close to achieving what they all yearned for. They wanted freedom, a life free from the persecution that haunted them nightly. To the death they’d fight for the chance at life and the humanity it brought with it.
They were a mismatched group of individuals. Half were suited in chainmail and carried large medieval weaponry, but the others were protected only by clothes on their back and given knifes and stilettos to defend themselves. Not exactly the army Xander hoped to assemble, to say the least.
Emily’s closest friends were all in attendance. Steven looked reinvigorated from the fresh sea air and for the first time, in a very long time, she saw her brother as the white knight he’d always been in high school. He protected her then, and he’d protect her now. Everything had changed, yet a few things remained the same, comforting things that she would keep close in her hour of need.
Steven was dressed head to toe in the same chainmail as the other vampires, long sword strapped to his back and cold demeanor in his eyes. He was ready for war, ready for a bloodbath. Emily had failed him, allowed him give in to his dark desires and take up arms in the battle for her life. She was going to make things right, she vowed, or die trying.
The vampire hunter’s had been good for him, at least in the short while he attended. She could sense a new strength in him, a spark of white hot energy that stirred within him, not unlike the fierce explosion of raw power that the blood demon endowed him with temporarily.
His mentor, Samuel, was a good man. Too good, perhaps, caught in a fight he never belonged in. He was in the wrong place, wrong time, and hunting the wrong game. Samuel thought he was hunting a vampire, and while he did find a vampire, a pack of werewolves had found him, lurking in his shadow and ready to pounce at first drop of his guard. And so they did pounce, but not as hard as Samuel, who drove them off with help from a summoner and the vampire he vowed to slay.
Esther was also there, offset from the group with a bright flashy dress, vibrant and colorful like the dresses she used to wear, before the castle fell. She was smiling, beaming with confidence, and surely would’ve been flush in the face had her skin still allowed it. She was a good vampire, but more than that, she was a good person. Esther was someone that Emily could count on, and in her new paranormal world, these people were few and far between.
“Beautiful dress,” Emily said as she ran a finger down the cerulean satin corset, “It looks great on you, but it’d look pretty decent on me, too.”
“Thanks,” Esther replied with a smile, “It’s the only one I could salvage. I spent half the night digging it up from the wreckage, and the other half I spent scrubbing it clean. I wanted to save it for a special occasion.”
“Ugh,” Fiona interrupted, clutching at her throat as if she was going to vomit, “You two are just filling my heart with warmth… I bloody hate when that happens. Knock it off and let’s get in the ‘copter.”
And then there was the mildly antagonistic, Fiona, a woman Emily hoped to one day call her friend, but until then she would have to sleep with one eye open. Like every one once in their camp, Fiona had paid with blood, although her wounds were a little fresher than most.
She was tall, strong, and confident— exactly the type of person Emily would expect in her closest circle of allies. Unlike the others, however, she had the nasty habit of threatening to murder Steven and make off with Samuel’s head. She would needed to be watched closely, a fact readily apparent to the summoner.
“I’m as ready as I’ll ever be,” Emily said as she was guided onto the helicopter by Xander.
Steven, Fiona and Esther accompanied them onboard and quickly strapped themselves into the seats. Samuel followed closely behind and tried to board, but was cut short by Xander.
“We’re full,” Xander replied with unyielding sympathy, “Maximum capacity… and all that stuff. You’ll have to walk the distance with all the ghouls and younglings. Sorry, but you know how it is, right?”
“Yeah, I know exactly how it is,” Samuel replied, taking another step towards the helicopter, “You’ve been giving me snotty looks since your precious castle walls fell down and I’m sick of it. You want to blame me for everything that’s gone wrong? Fine, go ahead. I bet it’s easier than blaming yourself.”
“I should knock that smirk off your face, boy,” Xander growled, “I’ve killed many of your kind, and I’ve no doubt I’ll kill many more—.”
“You two are completely helpless!” Emily shouted as she threw her hands into the air. It took only a slight burst of adrenaline, but the impact of Emily’s charged fingers hitting the steel beam above her channeled into the helicopter. It came alive with lights blinking, radio chirping and rotors spinning— all from the slightest touch of a summoner’s charged energy.
“Whoa,” Steven said with vain hopes of breaking the tension, “Now that was pretty fucking cool, wasn’t it?”
“Listen, Samuel,” said Emily as she unhooked herself from the seat, “I need you to stay behind. I can’t explain it, but it’s important that you meet us there later. Please, Samuel, can you do this for me?”
“I can,” Samuel grumbled, “I don’t care much for it, but I’ll escort the ghouls and fledglings to the location. It’s marked on a GPS somewhere, right?”
Xander tossed a spare scanner towards Samuel, which he promptly caught and gave it a quick scan before stuffing it into his backpack.
“That’ll work,” Samuel said, “I’ll see you there in a day or so, then?”
“With a little luck,” Xander whispered, “Not at all.”
“Wait,” Emily said, hands in the air and waving anxiously around, “Esther, would you please go with Samuel. I know he can handle himself, but I’d prefer to have a vampire that the clan respects accompany him to safety—.”
“No, no, no,” Fiona said abruptly, “That won’t work, at all. Esther’s the expert in lost languages and we’ll need her around if we need to decipher anything left behind by the ancient vampires that first discovered this place.”
“I’ll do it,” Fiona said after a brief pause, “I’m no use before the battle and it’d do me some good to scour the landscape that we’ll likely be fleeing through soon enough.”
“I don’t care who comes,” Xander said as he took a seat beside the pilot, “I just want us up in the air within five minutes.”
“Fiona,” Emily said, gripping onto the vampire’s camouflaged jacket, “I know we haven’t seen things quite the same lately, and maybe we never did, but I need you to promise me that you’ll make sure Samuel’s in good hands.”
“Are you going to threaten me, too?” asked Fiona, less than impressed with the summoner’s little speech.
“No,” Emily replied.
“Good,” Fiona said as she tugged free from Emily’s grip, “Then I’ll take it under advisement.”
And just like that, Emily was pushed back into her seat and strapped in for the voyage in front of them. Their mode of transportation may have differed, but their destination remained the same and it loomed closer with each passing moment. The Temple of Prometheus was near— she could feel it in her bones.
The helicopter took off with a gust of wind and left the rest of Xander’s coven to find their own way to the temple. The ride was jaunty, which made it difficult to think or have thoughts heard. Everyone just stared blindly at the landscape as the helicopter lifted high up over the sprawling jungles that encompassed the entire view. Everyone, except the summoner, who had one more thing she needed accomplish; things made much more difficult by the chopping blade that thundered in her ears.
* * * * *
It had been almost thirty minutes since they had gotten aboard the helicopter, but finally Emily had reached the goal she had been striving this entire time to achieve. She wasn’t sure if the sage’s scrolls had instilled her with newfound power, or if her proximity to the temple was acting as a conduit for her powers; but it gave her new insight to the ways of her kind, and she
would make full use of the opportunity it provided.
“Can you hear me?” Emily thought, her consciousness reaching out to those left behind, “I need to know it you can hear me?”
Back aboard the ocean liner, a startled vampire hunter almost lost his footing as he heard the transmission, beamed directly into his head from far away.
“Emily, is that you?” Samuel shouted, his words echoing around the tight confines of the steel stairwell he was in, “Where the hell are you?”
“You don’t need to shout,” Emily said telepathically, “I can hear you just fine with your thoughts.”
A Moonlit Night - The Complete Saga Page 22
