Dawn Of Hope: Charity Anthology

by J. A. Culican

  The men in front halted and turned so abruptly that the words died on Ophelia’s tongue. The taller of the two men dipped his head to the Queen. “We’ve picked up on her scent. Two or three hours prior. Perhaps we should follow.”

  Ophelia shook her head. “I’m certain they’re right up ahead.”

  Callista closed her eyes and swayed her head. “Don’t concern yourself with remembering the way, my dear. My men are the very best, I promise you. We will find these traitors yet.”

  And together they set off in the right direction, Ophelia struggling to shuffle forward as though her shoes were filled with hardened clay.

  There were only so many promises Ophelia could make to herself then. Promises that Lenore and Ethan would be long gone by now, that she had distracted the search party long enough. Promises that they would have covered their tracks. But none of that meant anything to the Maltorim. With each new path traversed, Ophelia could feel the distance between herself and Lenore growing shorter. Soon she could smell Ethan on the air, and certainly she would not be the only one.

  The closer they drew, the more Ophelia panicked. Her mind spun too quickly to formulate a plan—too quickly for any idea to form. Her chest tightened, and her voice constricted in her throat. What could she say to divert the Maltorim’s efforts? One false move would result in her death.

  So it was with regret that her gaze met Ethan’s in the small field just north of the cemetery. He was standing with Lenore just several feet behind him, as though he were waiting, expecting this. Neither made any effort to escape or conceal themselves.

  Lenore crossed her arms and slung her narrow gaze at Ophelia. “I should have known.”

  “Lenore, I didn’t—”

  Queen Callista laughed, the sound musical and at the same time tinny. “Oh, you’re quite all right, Ophelia. We’ll take care of them.”

  That was the furthest thing from what Ophelia wanted. And what if they realized Lenore was her maker?

  Lenore clicked her tongue and stepped up beside Ethan. “If she would betray us,” she said to the Queen, “what makes you think she won’t betray you?”

  “Betray me?” The Queen giggled, but then her expression turned cold and her fangs snapped down. “It really is not worth betraying me. Just ask your friend, Robert.”

  When Lenore didn’t respond, the Queen smirked, one side of her mouth curving up and her gaze shifting playfully to the side. “Oh, that’s right. Robert’s hardly in the position to answer any questions. I’m afraid he won’t be able to join you . . . ever again.”

  Ophelia stepped forward to claim she hadn’t betrayed anyone, but Ethan’s warning gaze settled over her body and an understanding swept in. Lenore didn’t really think Ophelia betrayed them. Lenore would know that for a fact—Lenore would have felt all of this coming, such was the strength of a bond between maker and child. This had always been their alternate plan.

  Callista and her men encircled Lenore and Ethan, but Ophelia stood back. She could not fight against them any more than she could fight with them. Before the Queen’s men could take another step, Lenore and Ethan had two of them disabled, pinned to the ground, stakes driven through their hearts. The soldiers decomposed, their essence crumbling in the light breeze and scattering between patches of dead grass.

  As the remaining men lunged for Ethan and Lenore, Ophelia had the sudden urge to run. But she could not. There was nothing she could do now but stand there hopeless, praying to a God she no longer believed existed.

  Lenore struck with amazing speed. The man attacking her stumbled back but did not lose his ground. Locking arms, each struggled for the upper hand, their weight shifting back and forth until finally Lenore tackled him to the ground. Meanwhile, Ethan did not fare so well. Ankou were not a strong match against the Cruor.

  Callista sidled closer to Ophelia and whispered, “Does it not make for a show?”

  Ophelia smiled uneasily. She could barely force herself to nod. She winced as the blow one of the men delivered to Ethan echoed with a resounding crack. His eye swelled and blood gushed from his mouth, and the man attacking him was prepared to finish with the kill.

  Ophelia trembled, and her stomach clenched. Please, Lord, no. Not Ethan. To her left, Callista was nearly bouncing on her toes, her eyes wide and glazed in delight. She and Lady Karina would have made fast friends.

  A silence fell beside them. The head of one of the men flew past Callista, draining the color from her face and drawing out a gasp. Lenore had killed her attacker.

  Callista stumbled back as Lenore advanced. Her eyes had gone dark—not black, but surely dimmed, faded, as though cast in shadows. Callista trembled and turned her pouting yet demanding face toward Ophelia. The look—being that of a helpless child—threw Ophelia off her senses.

  “Do something!” the Queen demanded. She called past Ophelia to the man, her voice wavering. “Get the girl! Get the girl!”

  The man immediately complied, pouncing on Lenore before she could reach the Queen.

  Before Lenore turned to fight, Ophelia could hear her maker’s voice in her mind: You must honor the Queen.

  Through the cottony feeling in Ophelia’s ears, she could hear what Callista had been shouting all this time.

  “You! Ophelia, the man!”

  Ophelia swiveled her head toward her.

  Callista was pointing at Ethan. “Him! Kill him at once!”

  Me?

  Ethan paused, his gaze pleading. But pleading for what?

  For you to honor the queen! came Lenore’s sharp thoughts, cutting into Ophelia’s own.

  I can’t.

  You must.

  But Ophelia could only stand there, her gaze shifting from the Queen to Ethan and Lenore’s battle with one of the Queen’s men.

  Ethan shook his head before pouncing forward, knocking Ophelia to the ground. A short wind rushed from Ophelia’s lungs, and a sharp ache shot up her spine.

  “Ethan,” she whispered.

  He pressed his body against hers, pinning her down fiercely. His face lowered beside her own.

  “We must fight,” he whispered back, his voice low in her ear. “And you must win.”

  Though she struggled to free herself, she knew not what she would do once she had. But Ethan rolled to his back, pulling her on top of him in a way that gave the illusion she’d garnered the upper hand.

  “Kill him!” the Queen screamed.

  Ophelia’s fangs snapped down in response to Ethan’s bleeding wounds and to her arousal at his body pressed so close to hers. So tormented was she, trying to fight off her carnal nature, that she could not think of what to do.

  Ethan’s mouthed the words to her: Kill me.

  The scent of his blood ignited her hunger, but her love for him was stronger than her bloodlust. Her heart begged the Universe that her love for him could overcome this battle as well.

  Tears sprung to her eyes, and she pounded her fist against his chest. How can you ask this of me? How can you?

  “It’s me or it’s both of us,” he whispered. “You must.”

  Even to Ophelia’s newly heightened senses, the words were nearly inaudible, and the cries of war between Lenore and the remaining Queen’s soldier nearly drowned out his voice. This only made the words more vulnerable, made them sharper in Ophelia’s chest.

  But hadn’t this been the very reason she’d fallen for Ethan? That he’d been so devoted to this cause, so willing to sacrifice? She hadn’t expected this, though. Deep down, from her very core, she’d hoped whatever bloomed between them that was stronger than any battle they would face.

  Ethan’s gaze travelled the length of her thigh, and then down to her calf. Her dress had ripped, revealing the stake tied with old cloth to her left boot. She looked at it and back to him, her head shaking with too little inclination for anyone but him to know her meaning.

  No.

  She could not kill him. No, no matter how many lives depended on it, this was simply asking too much. The Univer
se could find someone else. Find someone else to send into the Maltorim to do their bidding, for it would not be her. Ophelia would be killed by the Queen herself. The Universe could find someone else to do their bidding.

  Ethan snatched the stake from Ophelia’s boot and pressed it to her chest, forcing her hands to hold the jagged piece of wood as well. She could feel it splintering in her palms as she pressed back.

  “Please, Ethan,” she whispered, tears splashing off her nose and onto his cheeks. Another salty tear slid onto her lips. “I can’t.”

  Though his arms shook with the façade of struggle, he lowered the stake closer to his own heart. No matter how it might seem to the Queen, this was not a battle Ophelia could ever win. Ethan was far stronger.

  “What are you waiting for?” the Queen bellowed.

  Lenore, covered in blood and leaving a dead body in her wake, plummeted toward the Queen and knocked her to the ground. Her thoughts rushed out to Ophelia: Save her and run.

  This was her chance. She shook her head at Ethan, releasing the stake and darting toward the Queen. She pushed Lenore from the Queen’s body, using the force of the pent up anger she’d stored throughout her ‘battle’ with Ethan. Lenore tumbled backward, and Ophelia yanked the Queen to her feet and tugged her by the hand, running off. Lenore and Ethan chased them with some restraint for a short distance, then fell back and eventually disappeared into the horizon.

  When they reached the mausoleum, Ophelia released the Queen and spun toward her.

  The Queen slapped Ophelia on the cheek.

  Ophelia was too stunned to speak. She raised her hand to her cheek, the slap having stung but without delivering any real pain.

  “Good for nothing!” Eyebrows pinched together and a scowl on her face, Callista looked toward the golden glow on the horizon.

  “We must get inside. Come next nightfall, your training will begin. If you cannot be trained, you’ll be disposed of.” She leaned in close to Ophelia. “I don’t know what you expected, coming here, but you’d better make yourself useful.”

  Rumors of Ophelia spread throughout the Maltorim. Though it was still believed she had twice saved the Queen’s life, some would say she had also twice brought the Queen’s life to danger. It would be a long time before anyone would trust Ophelia, and not long after that, Ophelia would chance her position on the Maltorim to betray them again.

  From Damascus to Al Harah, 1809

  Over the months, the Maltorim’s attention on Ophelia wavered. She was no longer new or interesting. Even her bloodlust had died away, leaving her only the need to hunt once a fortnight. She’d come full circle—the equivalent of a scullery maid to the Maltorim, easily overlooked as though she were merely a part of the mausoleum’s structure. A wall sconce, perhaps.

  Here, in this mausoleum, she would lie in wait for some unknown girl, some girl Ophelia would somehow recognize when the time came. However long it would take—years, centuries—Ophelia would have to wait, a clandestine mole.

  Tonight, the Maltorim was busy preparing for the Queen’s five thousandth year. She was the oldest known vampire, having lived in the settlement of the Barada basin. She’d been buried alive at the age of fifteen and had taken nearly five thousand years to be reborn by the earth.

  It was then she’d risen, sometime around 4800BC, her flesh and blood regenerated by the Universe, to travel far and wide to find others like her. It wasn’t until nearly a century later that she found another of her kind in Anatolia. She declared the man her servant, and together they continued their travels, each century bringing forth more of the Cruor species.

  But Ophelia knew Callista’s story was a lie. Several months prior, while most of the Maltorim was tucked away in one of the chambers for an evening meeting, Ophelia was asked to tidy the Queen’s room.

  “Just make the bed and mop the floors,” the Queen said. “Don’t touch anything.”

  No one would dare touch the Queen’s belongings. Except, perhaps, a woman such as Ophelia who had nothing to lose anymore.

  Once the Queen departed, Ophelia peered out the door and down the halls and, seeing no one, eased the door so that it was only slightly ajar. Wide open would give her no warning, and closed entirely would draw attention. Everyone had something to hide, and if Ophelia was to survive here, she needed to know what truths had been hidden about the Queen.

  The cleaning would wait. Being caught without the cleaning done would carry a lesser fate than being caught rummaging through Queen Callista’s belongings, so Ophelia needed to get the latter out of the way.

  She checked the usual places first. Under the pillow, under the mattress, inside the wardrobe. Nothing. There were no floorboards to check beneath. Ophelia plugged her fists onto her hips and scanned the room. It was mostly bare. All that remained was a bookshelf and a chair.

  Where would Ophelia hide something if she were the Queen? Callista was too smart to make an obvious choice. Ophelia sighed and sat in the chair. It would take too long to go through the Queen’s bookshelf. She gripped the sides of the parlor chair and squeezed her eyes shut.

  Think.

  She hunched forward and rested her head in her hands. Something rustled beneath her, and Ophelia was struck with an idea.

  She glanced to the door and, sensing no movement on the other side, slid to the floor and peeked at the underside of the chair. There it was. A leather-bound, beaten journal strapped to the bottom of the seat.

  Ophelia slid the journal from its place, her heart thundering in her chest. The book felt soft and vulnerable in her grasp. She forced herself to drop her gaze from the doorway to the journal. She would need to know the moment someone walked by, but she couldn’t read the journal and keep watch at the same time.

  She had a lifetime to read, yes? Maybe just a few passages here and there . . . maybe that would be all it took. Some stolen moments like these. The risk of being caught was great, but the risk of not learning the truth . . . that could be greater.

  That was the first night she cracked open the journal, careful not to disturb the pages, and began to read.

  Over the months, Ophelia learned enough to empower her against the Queen should the need ever arise. She learned the truth about Callista—learned that her story was one told to gain followers, nothing more.

  The story the Queen told belonged not to her, but to her father. A father who had abandoned her after killing her mother, following the discovery that Callista’s mother was dual-natural—Strigoi and Cruor both—and that his daughter was dual-natured as a result. After Callista’s father disowned her, she murdered him, though she kept alive his hatred for the dual breeds. A hatred for herself.

  It was then she’d set out to find other Cruor.

  Callista’s chance for redemption had come in the form of a dream—one that led her not only to more of her kind, but also to other species she was destined to join to form a council for the Universe. Because of her stories, all of the elemental races believed the Maltorim had been called on by the Universe, but the truth was that the Universe had never formed the Maltorim.

  Callista had but one hope—the magic of the Ankou. But their magic came with risks Callista could not bring herself to face, nor could she risk word getting out that she was dual-natured. Some might not care; she was the Queen, after all. Others might see her being dual-natured as a reason to overthrow her reign.

  Ophelia shook her head every time she thought of it; though Callista’s father hated the dual breeds, Callista herself had nursed hatred into genocide, meanwhile allowing her followers to believe she was the purest of all Cruor—a true earthborn, and the first of their kind.

  Ophelia dared not breathe a word of her knowledge to anyone, for her thoughts were the same as the Queen. True, they might overthrow her reign if they learned the truth, but alternately they might stand beside her despite her nature, which could very well mean Ophelia’s own death, should she have been the one to announce her findings.

  Ophelia would save her know
ledge as a last resort.

  Tonight, the rest of the Maltorim would celebrate the Queen. She was to be presented with a true Damascus sword, the steel blade laddered and waved with roses. This would be Ophelia’s chance to slip away from the mausoleum, if only for a time. Her chance to put her calling aside and follow the pull of her heart.

  A chance she was not supposed to take but refused to deny.

  Ophelia stepped into the brisk night, leaving behind the loud chatter of the crowds, the music, and the spicily scented air of Queen Callista’s celebration. Ophelia sped toward the distance without any direction in mind. Only away. When she was certain the distance she’d travelled was far enough—certain all of the Maltorim were too involved in their celebrations to notice her missing—she closed her eyes and felt with all her soul which way she needed to head next.

  She walked with purpose. She traveled the length of several cities, crossed through many small towns, thankful her uncanny speed as a Cruor allowed her to travel so far in mere moments.

  Ethan was out here, somewhere beneath this same dark moon. Lenore’s presence she could always feel, a steady undercurrent in her body at all times, but her connection to Ethan was something tender, something hidden in a quiet corner of her soul.

  She plowed through forests and over uprooted trees, stopping only when she reached a wood that a forest fire had recently claimed. What a shame the rain brewing in the air hadn’t come sooner, come before the dry earth and bright sun had set fire to this beautiful land. By her feet, a daffodil struggled to survive, and a lone butterfly sought life in the young flower. How she wished Ethan was with her, wished he was there to restore the forest to its greatness.

  She would find him yet.

  Perhaps she was mad. Perhaps what she felt—the pull that led her—was not really there at all. But the energy in the air guided her through shadowed woods, across vulnerable fields and into the crumbling walls of the outer city limits, until she reached a large building made of many small rooms. One of the windows was blocked by a thick blanket. Ophelia strode over and stood beneath it.