Wards of Night

by E. M. Knight

  Michael shines the light around us.

  “Whoa,” I murmur. “Now this is cool!”

  The walls around us are tall and made of grey stone blocks. They make me feel like I’m inside a castle. There’s a shelf in the distance. I see books on it. There’s also a table with the stub of a burnt out candle. There’s a small cot on the floor, long-since rotted.

  I walk to the shelf holding Michael’s hand. There are cubbies carved in the walls, and they hold all kinds of curious instruments and objects. There are jagged crystals, bits of rose, measuring scales, metal cups and decanters — I gasp — even a rodent skull or two.

  “What is this place?” Michael asks reverently.

  I don’t answer. My eyes are drawn to the spot just beside the bookshelf. There, I see mystical carvings on the walls. Runes, not unlike the ones I saw outside.

  Something pulls me toward them. I release Michael’s hand and crouch down. I feel… almost a resonance to them. A type of suction, however faint, that makes it impossible to look at anything else.

  “I think,” I say carefully. I don’t know what draws the words out of me, except that they feel right. “I think… this is the lair of a witch.”

  Michael scoffs. “A witch? That’s crazy. That’s—”

  I don’t hear the rest of what he says. At that moment, a sort of trance falls over me. The runes beckon. I reach out with one hand, fingers trembling, and trace the outlines of the very first symbol.

  A jolt runs up my arm. I gasp. Michael says, “What was that?”, but my focus is all on the walls before me. My hand passes to the second symbol, an upside-down triangle with three swirling lines through it.

  As soon as I touch it, the ground shakes.

  Michael grabs my shoulder. “We should get out of here.”

  “No!” I jerk back. I’ve never felt such affinity toward anything in my life. My attention shifts to the final symbol. I have to touch it — I must.

  Michael tries to yank me away, but I’m consumed by the need to know what the third symbol will do. I snarl and rip away from him. My fingers brush the intricate lines…

  A blazing blue light explodes from the wall. I’m thrown back as if hit by a force field. I land hard on my hip and cry out in pain.

  Michael’s on the ground beside me, but he’s quickly picking himself up. The whole room begins to shake. An earthquake! Dust and gravel rain down from the ceiling.

  A huge chunk of rock collapses right in front of the wall. It crashes to the floor not two feet in front of my legs.

  I scream.

  Next thing I know, Michael is grabbing my arm and hauling me up. He drops the flashlight in the commotion. It hits the ground and breaks.

  We’re trapped in the dark.

  The shaking continues. “This way!” Michael yells. We scrambled blindly toward the stairs. I trip and almost fall but Michael catches me again. He pulls me forward. “Here, here!” he cries.

  I find the entrance to the stairs and run up, together with him. The tremors throw us from side to side. I hear more crashing behind us. I know the roof is caving in.

  Frantic, we reach the top. We’re inside the stump, but it’s impossible to see. Fear grips me. I hold on to Michael for dear life. The shaking continues.

  “Now where?” I scream.

  “I don’t know!”

  Panic threatens to swallow me whole. We’re going to die down here. We —

  Suddenly the darkness parts, and for a flicker of a second, I see the way out. It’s framed by that strange blue glow.

  I grab Michael’s hand and race toward it. I shove him into the tunnel and quickly follow.

  We both emerge and collapse on the ground. A low sucking noise sounds from behind us. I yelp and jump away, then turn just in time to see the entire stump being swallowed by the earth.

  And then it’s over. Everything is still. A dreary silence falls over the woods.

  It takes both of us a long time to catch our breaths. When we do, Michael asks, “Did that really happen?”

  I shake my head. “I don’t know,” I say.

  “That flash of light… what was it? Did you cause it?”

  I just repeat the same three words. “I don’t know.”

  He looks at me. His expression is hollow.

  “Now what?”

  I take a deep breath. I look into his eyes. “We can’t tell anybody about this.”

  He nods vigorously. “I agree.”

  I give him my little finger. “Pinkie swear,” I say.

  We join fingers and seal the bond. After another few minutes, we get up and wander back to the cabin, shaken and dazed.

  Wow. I look around. I haven’t thought of that summer in ages. In fact, I’d pushed the memory so far down that I wasn’t sure if it were real or just part of a dream.

  And yet… something about it feels very, very real — and very, very immediate to what’s happening now.

  Chapter Seven

  JAMES

  “You called, Mother?”

  The Queen looks at me from her glass throne. I hate the pretentiousness of it, raised high on a dais in the middle of the chamber. If I had my way, I’d tear the whole thing down…

  Only to build a greater, bigger one, out in the open where all could see.

  “I hear you’ve found the girl,” she tells me. Her eyes wander the space above my head. Not once does she look at me. She hasn’t looked at me, for the better part of two hundred years.

  Not like she looks at Raul, I think in a flash of spite.

  “Yes,” I say. “She’s been taken.”

  “You were the one to discover her?”

  My spine straightens, and my shoulders pull back in pride. “Yes.”

  “A shame it was you, and not your brother,” she says casually, glancing at her long, crystal nails.

  A growl of displeasure forms in my throat. I try my best not to make it too loud.

  “You’re troubled, my son,” she continues. “Tell me why.”

  She’s baiting me, I know it. “I’m as good as I ever was,” I lie. “Better, in fact. The best I’ve ever been.”

  She laughs. It’s a high, mocking laugh, and it makes goosebumps crawl down my back.

  “I can see into your heart, James,” she tells me. “I know the things that lurk beneath the surface.”

  “Nothing but loyalty to you and our coven,” I pledge.

  “Oh?” She quirks an eyebrow. “Prove it, then.”

  My breath catches. But I maintain a calm outward appearance. “Anything you ask.”

  “I’d like you to go to your father,” she says. “And, just in time for the succession…” Her pale eyes land on me. “Destroy him.”

  ***

  I storm into my brother’s keep.

  “Raul,” I rage. “Is this your idea of a joke?”

  I’m livid. Absolutely furious. The request our mother made of me… it’s unthinkable.

  He looks up at me from the drawings spread across his desk. I hate the smugness that creases the corners of his eyes.

  “I haven’t the slightest clue,” he says, a tad too softly, “what you’re talking about.”

  He watches me calmly. He’s in his element here, and I know I’m at a disadvantage when I give into the vampiric darkness. But I can’t help myself. Not now.

  “You told Mother…” My words come out in an angry hiss. “…To send me away. Didn’t you?”

  “I did no such thing.”

  “Liar!” I accuse. My eyes flash to the papers on his desk. They’re ancient parchments, worn and weathered with age. I scoff in disgust. “And what is this? Are you trying to verify the prophecy yourself?”

  “You know as well as I do that this is the year.” He gestures in the direction of where we’re keeping Eleira. “Her birthday lines up, as do the astrological signs.”

  “I could have told you that,” I say, exasperated. “I found her. You don’t trust me?”

  Raul looks me up and down. “It’s not
a matter of trust, brother,” he says. “It’s a matter of verification.”

  “You don’t trust my judgment, then,” I snarl.

  “After your display with the girl? No, I’d say I do not.”

  “Oh, for the love of —” I fling myself into an empty chair and hold a hand to my eyes. “I was just having a bit of fun.”

  “You don’t know,” Raul says, “the amount of control it took for me not to touch her.”

  A malicious grin forms on my face. “Oh, I know all about it, brother,” I say. “In fact, I’m disappointed in you. I would have sworn you would have taken a taste.”

  “And ruin what we’ve been waiting half a millennium for?” he growls.

  I don’t react in the slightest to his raised voice. When it’s darkness against darkness, evil against evil, rage against rage… I always have the advantage.

  “The only way you would have ruined it,” I say sweetly, “is if you had drained her whole.” I give a little shrug. “I was merely offering you a sampling, a little morsel. After all…” I lean toward him, gripping the armrests on either side of me. “…why should I be the only one to have tasted her blood? Brothers share, do they not?”

  Raul grunts. I laugh.

  “Back to the subject of Mother,” I say.

  Raul shakes his head and returns his attention to the sheets. “So she’s sending you away. What of it? You’ve gone on plenty of missions for her before. We all have.”

  “No,” I say. “This time, it’s different.”

  Raul seems unconcerned. “They’re all the same. Go here, retrieve this artifact. Go there, plant a little rumor in the ear of an ally or a foe. Spread a little discord in one of the other covens. You’re not going to miss anything while you’re away. We both know the speed with which you work.”

  I smirk. “Is that a little compliment?”

  “You finish the tasks fast,” Raul says. “But I never claimed you do them thoroughly.”

  A rush of fury fills me. I struggle to force it down.

  “How dare you,” I begin.

  “I dare,” Raul says, “because of how you mocked me with Eleira today.”

  I give no reply.

  “If we’re done?” Raul asks. “I have a lot to do tonight. The celestial charts show that —”

  “I don’t care what they show,” I interrupt. “Mother is sending me to The Crypts. Do you understand what that means? She wants me to kill our father.”

  That, finally, gets his attention.

  “No,” Raul breathes.

  This time, the cruel smile on my face comes entirely of its own accord. “Yes, Raul,” I say. “Now you understand.”

  “Father rules the most powerful coven in Eastern Europe,” he whispers. “In the last century, they’ve gone entirely dark. By now, his could be the most powerful in the world.”

  He shakes his head. “No vampire has gone inside and come back out.”

  I lean back, finally satisfied with his reaction. “So you agree that it’s not a trifling request.”

  “I assure you, I am in no way behind it,” he says. His defensiveness makes me laugh. “I can speak to Mother on your behalf. If that’s what you came to ask…”

  “No.” I rise. I peel off my coat and drape it over my arm. “I think I’m going to do it. There’s a reason the task fell to me.”

  “This is madness,” Raul says. “Going against Father’s coven would mean open warfare. The covens haven’t fought in centuries. Last time it happened, the bloodbath… it was…”

  He trails off, unable to finish the thought.

  “Don’t tell me you’re developing feelings of empathy for all those poor humans,” I sneer. “It was their blood that was shed, not ours.”

  “Vampires died in the war too.”

  “Yes, but how many?” I shrug casually. “A dozen? Two?”

  “More than that,” Raul says. “Hundreds.”

  “Even if, so what?” My eyes shine with zeal. “Maybe it’s time for a purge. Get rid of the weaker ones. Have the strong survive.”

  “If you’re talking Phillip…” he warns.

  “Oh no,” I say. “Our youngest brother is safe under your guard.” I stroll to his desk. “I wouldn’t do a thing to harm him.”

  I turn around, and walk out the room.

  “Wait!” Raul calls. I smile, then smooth my features before turning around.

  “Yes?” I ask sweetly.

  “Maybe… maybe you misunderstood Mother,” he says. “Maybe she wanted —something else.”

  “Her words were perfectly clear to me,” I say. I repeat them verbatim. “She told me to go to Father… and destroy him.”

  Chapter Eight

  RAUL

  I stare after James a long time once he leaves the room. Then I curse and nearly break the table in two.

  Mother wants him to go to Father. Mother wants him to kill him.

  What sort of madness is this?

  The last time two covens fought, the results were catastrophic. Not just for us, but for… the humans.

  I would never voice my fears to James. That would expose a weakness, I have no qualms about who I am or what I do, not like Phillip, but still, the unnecessary loss of human lives… it gnaws at me.

  How many vampires died in the last battle? Maybe a few hundred. But how many humans were killed when our kind was unleashed onto the world?

  Tens of thousands.

  I shudder with the memory.

  I resolve then and there that I must do everything I can to stop the same from happening.

  The first thing for me to do is speak to Mother.

  I climb the stairs to her private chamber. I raise my fist to knock on the door, but her voice pre-empts the knock.

  “Come in, sweetest.”

  I exhale in annoyance. I never liked the way she could sense us—and the way we are blind to her.

  But that’s the way the bond works between a vampire and the one who made him. She’s also protected because she, unlike any of the other vampires here, is also a witch.

  I open the door. Mother’s seated by the vanity, admiring herself in the mirror.

  I divert my eyes, bow my head, and press a fist to my heart.

  “My Queen,” I say.

  “Oh, hush, hush,” she quells me. “It’s just you and I. There are no servants present. No need for such formalities.”

  I straighten. “Thank you, Mo—” I was going to say Mother, but change it to her first name. “—Morgan.”

  She smiles through the mirror at me. One thing I know that she detests is when I call her Mother. It reminds her, I think, of the way things were before we were turned.

  But that was a long, long time ago.

  “Why did you come?” she asks. “Oh!” She mock-gasps. “I know. You’re here to petition on your older brother’s behalf.”

  “So it’s true,” I say. I didn’t doubt James, but to hear it confirmed from the Queen’s lips…

  “Certainly,” she says lightly. She spins around and puts her eyes on me.

  They’re tinged with red. The faintest ring of it on the outline of her irises.

  She’s been feeding.

  “It’s madness to send him to The Crypt!” I exclaim.

  She smiles and tilts her head to the side. “Always right to the point, aren’t you? What, you don’t have time for pleasantries.”

  “You’re avoiding the question,” I say.

  “And you’re challenging your Queen.” A spark of hatred blazed in her eyes. “I could have you in chains for that.”

  I know it’s an empty threat but I drop my head anyway. “I’m sorry,” I say. “I forget myself.”

  “Forgiven,” she announces with absolutely no conviction. “I’ve missed seeing your face, Raul. I wonder why you don’t visit me more often.”

  You know perfectly why, you scheming witch, I think.

  I keep my expression blank.

  She stands and makes her way to me. I’m rooted in pl
ace. She reaches up and tousles my hair.

  “Flame red,” she whispers in my ear. I feel her breath on my skin. “Such a rare quality for a vampire. Almost enough…” she traces her hand along my jaw, “…to tempt even the Queen.”

  “Enough.” I say, and step away.

  She was turned, as a human, when she was only twenty. She waited until her children were grown before infecting them with the curse. She did it all at once. James was twenty-three, I was nineteen, and Phillip was seventeen.

  It’s only in the last few decades that her flirtatious games have increased. I always thought them revolting. She treated them as nothing more than a great joke.

  Morgan gives me a secretive smile and wink. “Not even the tiniest bit tempted?” she asks.

  Disgust floods through me. “No.”

  “A pity,” she says. “We would have so much fun together.”

  “Fun?” I say. “You speak of fun, when you go and send your oldest son to start a war?”

  “Oh, I very much doubt it’ll come to that.” She returns to the mirror. “If anything,” she adds softly, “It could remind Logan how much he misses me.”

  I can’t help myself. I bark a laugh. “We’re nearing five hundred years, Mother,” I say. “I doubt he remembers you exist.”

  “Silence!” she screeches. It’s a rare outburst. “You will not speak of my husband that way!”

  “You sent James to kill him,” I deadpan. “I seriously doubt he’ll view that as a romantic gesture.”

  “Oh?” she accuses. “And what do you know about love? You, who’s never even been with a girl —”

  “That’s not true,” I growl.

  “One wench two hundred years ago doesn’t count.”

  Liana.

  Before I know what’s happening I shoot across the floor and pin Morgan to the wall. I grip her throat, hard. My other hand hovers threateningly over her heart.

  “I could kill you, witch,” I hiss.

  “Oh?” She cranes her chin up, giving me easy access. “Then do it, son. Rip my heart out. End your Queen. See what happens when the subjects of our coven turn on you.”

  I’m breathing hard, lost in the darkness, lost in my rage.