by Cege Smith
Angeline sat up and stretched. She was eager to reach this strange vampire Caspian and hoped that Connor did indeed know where he was taking her. She brushed out his cloak and then went over to the stream to wash her face and tame the tangles in her hair. It was a full moon that night, and she became enthralled with its reflection in the gently moving water.
She felt a hand on her shoulder and she started. Then she caught a glimpse of two violet eyes peering back at her from the water’s surface. The eyes were attached to a gaunt, white face that was framed by streams of black hair. It was her reflection. She touched her cheek and felt the jawbone protruding through her skin. Then she realized that although Connor was behind her, there was no sign of his reflection in the water.
She turned and looked up at him. “I look frightful.” She tried to stay very matter-of-fact.
“The changes you are experiencing are physical as well as psychological,” he said.
“I can’t go home looking like this. Everyone will know that something is wrong with me,” she said.
“Once the change is complete, your physical appearance will be different, but you have to remember that many people have not seen you in two years. It will be much easier to explain,” he said. His face was expressionless.
“Well, what do you mean I will look different?” she demanded.
“Princess, the sooner we get you to Caspian, the sooner you will have your answers. For now, I think it best that we focus on the immediate problem at hand,” he said.
As much as Angeline wanted to stomp her feet and make him answer her, she knew that he was right, which made her all the angrier. She wanted to be the one with the cool head.
“Fine,” she said. She marched up to him and went to put her hands around his neck so that he could pick her up.
“No need for that.” He smiled.
“What do you mean?” Angeline was confused.
“I know that you won’t find many benefits with your current state, Princess, but this one may be of interest. I don’t need to carry you because there is no reason that you can’t keep up with me now,” Connor replied.
Angeline gaped at him. “You mean I can run faster than a horse too?” The thought was terrifying, and yet appealing at the same time. With this ability she could travel almost anywhere she wanted to in the kingdom in a matter of days.
“Try it out. Catch me,” Connor said as he turned and disappeared downstream.
Angeline had no idea what to do other than run after him, and his simple taunt had awakened the competitive Robart streak that she knew was practically a genetic requirement of her bloodline. As she dashed off in the direction that she thought he had gone, she felt that internal guidance system kick in.
She knew Connor’s signature and she sensed that he was in front of her. He was moving, but not as quickly as she had first thought. She picked up her pace, and felt that Connor was adjusting his as well. That frustrated her. Why wasn’t he giving it his all? Why was he holding back?
She pushed forward and felt her feet accelerate in a way that she never thought possible. Her feet barely seemed to skim the ground. She was weaving with ease through trees that had grown close to the stream’s bank, even though everything seemed like a blur moving past. She knew now that Connor wasn’t holding back. He was running at full pace, and breakneck as it was, she was keeping up. And the best part was, she was gaining on him.
She couldn’t believe it, but she was. For every two steps that Connor took, it was like she took three. The gap was getting increasingly smaller and smaller, until she could actually see the blur that was Connor weaving through the trees in front of her.
Angeline gave her body one more small kick of adrenaline, and suddenly she shot forward and collided with him. They both went flying forward in a tangle of limbs and landed on a soft padding of moss at the base of a tree that stretched so high above them that she couldn’t see the top.
She found herself sprawled on top of Connor with their legs intertwined. She flushed and started to apologize and pull away when she realized the quivering and heaving underneath her was Connor laughing. In fact, he was laughing so hard that she could see tears streaming out of the corners of his eyes.
“What?” she asked as she hit him in the chest and stood up to clean herself off. She noted his wince where her fist had connected.
“Ooph,” he complained. “I told you to catch me, not kill me.”
“You didn’t tell me the rules of the game,” Angeline sniffed. “But regardless, a Robart always plays to win.”
“I’ll remember that,” he said as he rolled over on his side and pushed himself slowly to his feet.
She was just about to ask how much further they had to go when she heard a loud clapping noise coming from across the stream. They both turned, and a small wizened man stepped out from behind a tree. He had a huge tuft of white hair on his head that matched the long beard extending from his chin, and he looked like he was well over a hundred years old. He continued clapping while staring at Angeline.
“Well done, young one. Well done!” he said. “You are a special one. I can feel it in my bones. Maybe you are even the One.”
Angeline looked from the man to Connor questioningly. After what seemed like an eternity, Connor sighed and then gestured to the other man.
“I believe we have found Caspian the Fallen,” he said. He turned to the other man. “I am Conner and this is Angeline.”
Angeline started to interrupt him. No one simply called her Angeline. She was Princess Angeline Mary Ellen Robart, Princess and Future Queen of Altera. But Connor shot her a warning look and she bit her lip.
Suddenly Caspian was no longer standing across the stream, but directly in front of her. She took a step back in alarm as he peered at her from under two heavy eyebrows.
“She’s newly bitten,” Caspian said, directing the question to Connor.
“Yes,” Connor replied.
“The change is still fresh. She hasn’t even gone through the final stage yet. What did you do, bungle the transformation?”
Angeline thought for sure if she let him, Caspian would be prying her mouth open to inspect her like one would inspect a horse. The tiny vampire made her uncomfortable, and there was no way she was going to let him touch her.
“I didn’t bungle anything,” Connor replied coolly. “She was bitten by a poisonous spider and asked my assistance in removing the venom. She died right before I was able to remove the last bit. It was never my intention to turn her into a vampire.”
Caspian paused and looked Connor over from head to toe, considering him. “You are Monroe’s whelp, aren’t you?”
Angeline saw Connor’s face flush and was alarmed to see that he looked angry. She wasn’t sure what the question was intended to get at other than confirming Connor’s vampire lineage, but he looked like he wanted to throttle Caspian’s neck.
“Monroe is my sire,” he said through clenched teeth.
Caspian didn’t seem to notice. “For Monroe’s whelp, you know better. You know the law. It’s death or transformation. There’s no crossbreeding.”
Crossbreeding? Was that what the vampires called what had happened to her? Angeline didn’t care for Caspian’s tone at all. Her bloodline was pure and royal. The mere idea of crossbreeding suggested that she was inferior, and that didn’t sit right with her at all.
“I found a woman in distress who needed my help. I wouldn’t impose my curse on anyone, even if she had been amenable to it. I did what I could to give her a chance.”
He wasn’t telling the story right at all. He had glossed over the fact that the only reason she was in this position was because he had spirited her away from her camp and had been holding her against her will.
She opened her mouth again and caught another warning look from Connor. Caspian seemed to be digesting this information and was looking at Connor thoughtfully.
“A curse, eh? I know your sire would not be pleased to hear you call it such,
” Caspian said.
“He didn’t ask my permission. Plus, I’ve never hidden my feelings on the matter from him,” Connor said.
The whole exchange was confusing and a bit alarming. She didn’t know enough about Connor’s past. It sounded like this Monroe was an important person in the vampire coven, if he hunted exiled vampires. It was starting to make more sense why Connor had been given the task of bringing her back to the Master.
“Monroe’s glorious army is falling apart at the seams,” Caspian gurgled in obvious delight.
Army? The vampires were amassing an army? It was becoming increasingly clear that whatever was going on out here in the Forgotten Lands had been allowed to go on far too long. Angeline had no idea why her father, or grandfather, or great-grandfather had been so careless. If Angeline didn’t do something, it might be possible that her kingdom would wake up one day at war with an enemy that most of people had forgotten ever existed.
She could feel the familiar anger welling inside of her again. Her father had been wrong to keep this from her. It was unfair that she had been born a girl instead of a boy. And on the eve of her Ascension it seemed the most unfair of all that she had been thrown into a situation where her very existence would be dangerous for anyone to be around her. She wanted to hit something. She wanted to hit something hard.
It was as the two vampires turned to look at her in unison that Angeline let loose a bloodcurdling screech of sheer frustration and rage. The only thing she could think about was getting away. She turned on her heel and plunged into the forest. She knew now that she was faster than Connor, and she didn’t have time to think about where she was going or what she was going to do when she got there. She just needed to get away.
Suddenly she was hit squarely in the back. She stumbled and went down. Whatever had hit her was hard and she could feel pain flash up through her spine. She felt her arms twisted behind her and she cried out. Her wrists were bound together in seconds and then she was flipped over. Caspian stood over her and looked at her through narrowed eyes.
“You haven’t even finished the hybridization process yet. Where do you think you are going?”
“I didn’t ask for this. I don’t want to be here. I just want to go home,” Angeline said. She tested the strength of the bonds around her wrists. They were tight. It would take her hours to work them loose, but the look on Caspian’s face said he wasn’t one to be trifled with.
Then she saw Connor’s emerald eyes appear over Caspian’s head.
“She’s a wild one,” Caspian said as Connor drew up beside him.
“Can you help her?” Connor asked.
“Given a few decades, perhaps,” Caspian replied.
Angeline moaned. Where moments before there had been white hot anger, now she was filled with grief. She knew the swing of emotions was illogical, but she didn’t feel like she was in control at all.
“We don’t have decades, Caspian. At most we have days.”
Caspian snorted. “Impossible.”
“I’ve been told that you have developed the right methods to tame any wraith you’ve encountered,” Connor argued.
“Perhaps, given enough time to experiment. Wraiths, as I’m sure you know, are in short supply. Plus, there is the matter of uncovering the most important thing that makes such a thing possible.”
“What’s that?” Angeline asked sullenly. She didn’t like that these two men were deciding her fate. She wiggled around to her side and managed to get her feet under her so that she was carefully able to stand.
Caspian was eye level with her now. “You have to have a very good reason for wanting to be human. The siren song of the vampire darkness is very strong. It can overwhelm any paltry intentions.”
“She has such cause,” Connor said in a low voice.
Caspian glowered. “And what’s that?”
Connor sighed, “She’s going to be queen.”
Caspian turned to her and said, “What is your name, girl?”
Angeline drew herself up to her full height. “Angeline Mary Ellen Robart.”
Caspian squealed in delight and clapped his hands again. “Oh yes. This is going to be fun.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Connor had hoped to enlist Caspian’s help without revealing Angeline’s identity, but he recognized quickly that the old vampire seemed more interested in reveling in his own deviations from the Master’s will. So in that regard, Monroe had been right. Caspian would be more inclined to help if he knew that the work would be a guaranteed spit in the Master’s eye.
He had to stay close now. Caspian’s free tongue had already revealed too much, and it wouldn’t do to train Angeline on how to control her inner demon and then send her home with too much intelligence on the Master’s plans. That would have disastrous consequences, and he feared that if and when his involvement came out, he would face a fate far worse than banishment.
Everything had happened so fast that Connor hadn’t had time to start to work on what his story was going to be when it came time to return to the coven. He felt a bit sick that the spider had forever taken away his opportunity to win the game; the game that if he had been victorious, would have set him free. But he couldn’t focus on that right now. It wouldn’t do him any good to dwell on something that was a foregone conclusion.
They were moving deeper into the forest at a good pace, unable to run because the further they traveled, the closer the trees grew together. Caspian had declined to remove Angeline’s bindings. Even without reading her mind, Connor could tell that she was embarrassed and angry. She had two spots of color high on her cheekbones and she was staring straight ahead. But it was nothing like the waves of rage that he had felt rush out of her just before she made the mad dash away from them. He could tell that she was struggling still with the newness of everything that she was experiencing, and he felt bad to know that it wasn’t over yet.
As if she read his mind, Angeline asked, “What’s hybridization?”
Connor shifted uncomfortably. “It’s the final stage of your transformation.”
She looked over at him coolly. “I understood that part. But what is it? What happens? What should I be expecting?”
Connor cleared his throat, stalling for time, and then Caspian’s voice traveled back to them.
“Your old skin sloughs off just like a snake’s, exposing your new pretty hybrid skin underneath. It’s really quite remarkable, albeit painful for the one going through the process.”
Angeline stopped dead in her tracks, her eyes flashing wildly. “What? That’s not possible. I don’t understand how this could be happening. I must be dreaming. I don’t want to be a hybrid, or wraith, or be anything but who I already was. Please, Connor. Help me stop this.”
“There’s nothing to do to stop it, Princess.” Shaking his head, he slowly reached across the few feet between them. He knew that she thought he was going to try to comfort her, but that wasn’t the reason for his touch. His fingertips grazed her cheek and he let his nails bite into the delicate skin there.
Angeline cried out and whipped her head away. He held up his hand for her inspection. A thick piece of rosy pink skin lay in the palm of his hand. Looking at her face, he could see that she was mortified, and her grief was palpable. But what she didn’t see that he did was the lovely white new skin underneath. It was translucent and shimmering, and he knew that once she was fully changed, she was going to be a sight to behold.
“What’s going on back there?” Caspian had stopped to turn and look at them. “We want to be there before the sun comes up for sure.” He pointed at Angeline. “And once that one starts progressing further into her hybridization it’s going to be a long day. If we are working under such a tight timeline, I’d like to start her training before that happens.”
“How much further is it, Caspian?” Connor asked. “Can’t you unbind her? I don’t think she’s going anywhere.”
Caspian snorted. “If it was just her trying to run we had to worry abou
t I wouldn’t bother with her bindings. But there’s much darker urges lurking there underneath that pretty face and I, for one, have no desire to meet that little demon without warning.”
Connor knew that wraiths could be dangerous, but Caspian’s safeguards seemed ridiculous. “There are two of us and one of her. I don’t think it would be a problem.”
Caspian shook his head. “You are naive if that is what you think, dear boy. Luckily for both of us, I have more experience in this area and I will make sure that neither one of us regrets the decision to not kill her while we had the chance. Not until she’s trained. Forget it.” He turned to walk away and Connor and Angeline had no choice but to follow.
They continued on for several hours, and the forest seemed to be closing in around them. Angeline had cried softly for a while, and then fallen into a sullen stupor. She hadn’t spoken a word since Connor had exposed that tiny spot of her new skin.
Just when it seemed like they were never going to get there, a small clearing opened up in front of them.
“Ah yes,” Caspian said with a satisfied smile. “It’s so nice to be home.”
Connor and Angeline entered the clearing and Connor’s mouth fell open. In a forest full of massive trees, they were looking at a huge wall of rock that stretched out into the forest in either direction and rose several hundred feet into the air. In front of them, the wall seemed to take on the shape of a face. A large opening shaped like a gaping mouth rose out of the ground. A large outcropping about midway up the rock face jutted out and formed a beak nose. What looked like two cave openings parallel to each other near the top formed the eyes.
Angeline giggled. “He’s an ugly one, isn’t he?”
Connor looked sharply at her. She stepped forward, stumbled, and fell heavily to her knees. As he went to help her up, her head whipped around and Connor took a step back. Her mouth was curled in a snarl and her eyes were full of hatred. The tiniest bit of red encircled her pupils.
“Don’t you touch me! Don’t you dare touch me. This is all your fault! Your fault!” Then she let out a banshee screech that made Connor wince.
