“Do you need some help?” I said, standing back to allow Dad to go to the front door of the parsonage. “Because if you do—”
Dad waved off my offer. “Thanks, but I think I can walk on my own.”
Dad tried to walk toward me, but then stumbled. I caught him quickly, however, and said, “Let me at least help you to the front door, okay?”
“Okay,” said Dad, smiling somewhat sheepishly. “Lead the way, then.”
I led Dad to the front door of the parsonage, opened the door, and we both went inside. I had been staying in the parsonage for the last week or so, getting everything cleaned up and ready for Dad to come home. We walked past the door to the basement (which I had blocked off with a chair due to how unsafe it currently was) and to the door to his room.
As we walked past the basement, Dad glanced at the door and grimaced. “Oh, boy. I don’t even want to think about how much it will cost to fix all that.”
“Can’t you just use magic?” I said as we stopped in front of the door to his room.
“Yes, I know a spell or two that could speed along the repair process greatly,” said Dad. “Unfortunately, cleaning and repair spells were never my specialty in my youth, so I’ll only be able to clean up some of it magically. For the rest, I’ll need to hire a company to clean up and repair what I can’t, which I imagine is going to cost more money than I want to think about.”
“I’ll stay and help,” I said. “I mean, I’m not very magically skilled, but—”
“No, it’s fine, Tara,” said Dad. “You can go back to your apartment tomorrow. The church and I will figure out a way to pay for the repairs. Maybe our insurance policy will cover it, though knowing how insurance companies operate, I bet they’ll cover as little of the repairs as possible.”
“If you say so,” I said. I let go of Dad. “All right, you can go and rest in your bed. I’ll get lunch ready for you.”
“Spaghetti and buttered toast?” said Dad interestedly. “Will you make that?”
I smiled. “Of course. It’s your favorite, after all, and I’m sure you’ve missed it.”
“Definitely,” said Dad. “The hospital food was all right, but it’s nothing compared to home cooking, especially from my daughter. But the drive home tired me out, so I’m going to go take a nap now.”
Dad opened the door to his room and entered. When he closed the door behind him, I stood still, listening for any sounds of him falling over, but the only sounds I heard were Dad kicking off his shoes and then the creaking of his mattress a second later, which told me that Dad had managed to make it to his bed without falling over.
With a smile, I made my way, not to the kitchen to make lunch, but to the spare room I was staying in. Though my sunglasses had protected my eyes well enough from the bright sunlight, I still needed to take a moment to sit in a dark room and let my eyes recover from being out and about like I was. It would just take a few minutes, which would leave me with plenty of time to get Dad’s lunch ready. Besides, I figured Dad was not going to wake up for a while, because he seemed exhausted after spending so much time in the hospital.
Upon entering the spare room, I closed the door behind me, took off my glasses, and sat down on my bed, sighing in relief as I rubbed my eyes. The spare room was completely dark, or as dark as I could make it, anyway. The windows were closed and blocked off with the thickest curtains I could find and the lights were off. Anyone else who walked into here would find it impossible to see where they were, but not me. I found I could look around about as well as I used to be able to during the day when I was human.
Raising my face from my hands, I looked at the corner of the room where Domination, still in its sheath, stood. I had not worn or carried Domination since Alara took me back here after the defeat of Lord Taranas. I had practiced with it a little, but not a whole lot because I didn’t know much about swordplay and was afraid of hurting myself. Dad had promised to teach me more about swordplay once he got better, though when I told him about how I killed Lord Taranas, he joked that I was already a sword expert and didn’t need his advice or training.
That, of course, was false. I felt like I got lucky against Lord Taranas and I knew that the fight could have gone very differently if not for the grace of God, which I was convinced was the only reason I survived. Therefore, I was determined to learn how to use Domination in a more reliable manner, as well as how to use my magical powers beyond summoning simple fireballs. All of that would have to wait until Dad got better, which was a bit frustrating because I wanted to be a good sword fighter and sorceress now, not later.
And I didn’t even really relax this week. I kept worrying that someone from the Order of Vampires would come by to finish me off, or maybe one of Lord Taranas’ Newborns had somehow survived the slaughter and would come after me for revenge. But no one ever did. I had the entire house to myself for the whole week. The most that happened was that some of Dad’s parishioners would come by to find out how he was doing, but even they didn’t come by that often. And Tony, my boss from work, also called me to find out why I didn’t come into work, which forced me to come up with an explanation about Dad being in the hospital that he, thankfully, accepted, though he expected me back in work tomorrow.
I shouldn’t have been surprised by my relatively peaceful and slow week, really, because Alara had explained to me that I would be perfectly safe for at least a month, if not longer, thanks to Lucius invoking the Lamb doctrine.
“But what is the Lamb doctrine?” I remember saying shortly after Alara and I stepped out of the Shadow Way into my bedroom. “And why will it keep me safe from you guys?”
Alara turned to face me, an annoyed expression on her face. “The Lamb doctrine is an ancient vampire law that has been used only a handful of times through vampire history. Any vampire who invokes the Lamb doctrine is essentially volunteering to take the place of a convicted or arrested criminal, including any punishments that said criminal is sentenced to, from paying a simple fine all the way up to execution. The Lamb doctrine also protects the actual criminal in question for at least a month, though sometimes longer depending on whether the invoker of the doctrine specifies how long the doctrine’s protection lasts.”
I put my hand over my mouth. “Is that why Xanner said that Lucius might die?”
Alara nodded. “Yes. Granted, there’s no guarantee that Lucius will be killed, but given how death is the automatic sentence for every half-vampire and he’s taken your place, there’s a pretty high possibility that Lucius will be executed instead of you.”
“That’s horrible,” I said. “If I had known what the Lamb doctrine actually was, I would have said something.”
“There’s nothing you could have said that would have saved him,” Alara interrupted. “The Lamb doctrine cannot be overridden. It is a sacred and ancient law, one of the oldest in vampire culture,. Unlike normal laws, it was established by magic, meaning that not even the wiliest lawyer in the world could find a way around it, nor could the smartest judge dismiss it.”
I found it strange how upset Alara seemed. She wasn’t on the verge of crying like I was, but I could tell that she was just as upset about Lucius’ decision as I was. That made me wonder if there was something between Lucius and Alara that I didn’t know, which caused jealousy to flash up within me unexpectedly.
“I wish there was something I could do,” I said. “I—”
“Shut up,” Alara snapped. “I don’t know why Lucius sacrificed himself to save a halfie like you, but it was the dumbest mistake he’s ever made. Did you bewitch him with your halfie magic to do that?”
“What?” I said. “How could I bewitch a vampire when I can barely even create a small fireball? You’re not making any sense.”
Alara looked like she was going to attack me, but then she lowered her claws and said, “Never mind. You’re clearly not smart enough to bewitch Lucius. Which clearly means that Lucius must have finally lost his mind.”
“I don’t know,�
�� I said. “He seemed perfectly sane to—”
“I don’t care,” Alara interrupted again. “Because of the Lamb doctrine, I can’t do anything about you right now. But trust me, halfie, me and the entire Order will be keeping a careful eye on you from now on. And if you try anything—and I do mean anything—we’ll be on your ass faster than you can draw your sword. Got it?”
I nodded, feeling intimidated under Alara’s intense glare. “Sure. I promise I won’t get up to anything bad. I’m just going to live a normal, peaceful life from now on. Promise.”
Alara looked at me as if she didn’t really believe what I said, but then she nodded once and disappeared into the Shadow Way again. That was why I spent the last week worried about my safety. I didn’t believe what Alara told me about the Lamb doctrine and expected her and her fellow Order agents to show up at any moment to take me out.
But perhaps she had been telling the truth about it. As I said before, I was completely safe in the parsonage. Maybe this Lamb doctrine stuff was real after all. If so, I was grateful, because it meant that I had at least three more weeks before the Order came after me again, maybe longer depending on if Lucius specified longer.
But that just made me worry about Lucius. For all I knew, he might be getting executed even now, or beaten or tortured to death or whatever they planned to do to me. Alara said that execution was the punishment for half-vampires, but maybe they would give him a lighter sentence and just throw him in jail for life. Did vampires even have jail? There was still so much I didn’t know about the vampire world and, despite Dad being against it, I wanted to know all about it, because if I was going to stay a half-vampire for now, then I figured I needed to know as much as I could about both the vampire and sorcerer worlds.
I wanted to go and rescue Lucius, but I had no idea where he was and I didn’t want to risk going through the Shadow Way again by myself. I didn’t want to end up in the hands of Timmy or any other Stranger, which would probably happen if I traveled the Shadow Way by myself. Still, I sometimes found myself fantasizing about rescuing Lucius, with the two of us going on the run from the Order, living as lovers traveling the country and the world as we stayed one step ahead of the people trying to catch us both.
But because that was probably never going to happen, I just prayed for Lucius during the week, asking God to protect him wherever he was. I still had my doubts about whether God even listened to a half-vampire like myself. It seemed even less likely that he would go out of his way to protect a literal vampire, especially a vampire who, as far as I knew, didn’t even believe in him. But Dad always told me to bring my concerns to God, no matter how big or small. And besides, ever since I defeated Lord Taranas, I was starting to feel close to God again, making me think that maybe God hadn’t abandoned me after all.
I had also told Dad about everything that happened in Lord Taranas’ mansion a week ago when I visited him at the hospital the next day. Dad had been relieved to hear that I was okay, that Lord Taranas was dead, and that the Vampire Sword was securely locked away from the world again. He hadn’t been as upset as me at Lucius’ arrest, but I could tell that it did bother him a little. Dad would probably never admit it, but I think he trusted Lucius, despite how much he claimed to hate vampires and wanted nothing to do with them, and he was bothered that Lucius might be punished in my place despite having done nothing wrong himself.
But Dad did point out how it was similar to Christ dying on the cross for our sins, which I thought was kind of funny because Lucius was definitely not a Christian. Dad himself seemed a bit disturbed at the idea of a vampire being a better Christian than most humans, but it gave me hope that maybe Lucius wasn’t entirely lost after all. And if Lucius wasn’t entirely lost, then perhaps I wasn’t, either.
I prayed a quick prayer right now, asking God once again to protect Lucius and deliver him from wherever he was.
Then I opened my eyes, stood up, and left the room, because I needed to get Dad’s lunch ready.
-
TO BE CONTINUED IN “THE VAMPIRE WAR,” COMING MARCH 2018.
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About the Author
About the Author
T.L. Cerepaka is a Texan urban fantasy author and author of the Vampire Sorceress urban fantasy series.
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The Vampire Sword (Vampire Sorceress Book 1) Page 18
