by D. N. Leo
“When did you two plan all this?” Alex lowered his voice. It was the only way he could manage his raising temper. “Next time, I’d appreciate a heads-up!”
“We didn’t plan it. I just played along with what appeared to be under Madeline’s control,” Ciaran said.
Madeline smiled. “I didn’t do much. And we don’t need to plan, Ciaran. We’re soulmates, remember?” She strode ahead, heading into the mansion to look for Blaise.
“Are you sure he’s not going to use his sexual appeal tricks on her again?” Ciaran asked Alex as they followed behind her.
“If you’re worried, then go in there and stand next to her. He didn’t finish his supper, so he’s pretty hungry and has a lot of urges right now.”
“You’re kidding!” Ciaran muttered and entered the mansion.
Chapter 39
Ziva gazed out to the east. The middle of the mountains was entirely covered in snow. The stretch of land was still a mystery to her, even considering how often she had come here in the last three years. It was deceptively peaceful.
The monks didn’t need much from the village because the temples were quite self-sufficient. But there were a lot of things happening at the top of the mountains that had nothing to do with worshiping and ritual practice. Those activities were from businesses, researchers, travelers, and all kind of trades. She was here because she provided what the temples and the gods couldn’t offer her clientele—earthly food.
She juggled the backpack on her shoulders and entered a small natural stone gate that marked the territories of the sacred ground in the mountains. This massive flat area the size of the football stadium had nothing on it except snow. She didn’t want to walk through it, but that was the only way to get to the area where the temples and businesses were located.
In a small stone kitchen they had built her, she started a fire to warm up the oven. She didn’t need to make an announcement of her weekly arrival. The traders and businesses here could smell the spices in the air and knew their godly weekly pizza had arrived.
Yes, pizzas were what she made them. She smiled to herself, recalling the reaction from her business partners in town when she told them that she closed her restaurant there for a couple of days a week to take this trip up the mountain and make pizzas for anyone here who wanted to eat something more than the food the temple provided.
She was an excellent chef. She could cook all kinds of exotic food. But pizza was easiest to make with the mobile kitchen on her shoulders, and it was exactly what these people craved. So why stray from the market’s needs?
The kitchen was set up for her with basic ingredients for the pizza crust. She couldn’t claim she made better dough than the monks. However, the treats she brought for her customers here were the toppings. They never knew what she would make for them every week, and they liked the surprise.
“Smells spicy but delicious!” said a male voice from the door of the kitchen.
Ziva turned. The smile spread across her face even before she saw who it was. “Annan! It’s always a pleasure to have you as my first customer of the day. It’s only pepperoni that I have this week. It won’t be spicy,” she said while cursing to herself. She prayed for another customer to enter the kitchen. Every nanosecond she had to spend with Annan was like a century.
“I’m sure I can handle your spices, regardless of how hot they are.”
She smiled. “Pynni doesn’t want pizza this week?”
The sleazy smile vanished from Annan’s face.
“What happened?” Ziva asked, although she had already guessed the answer.
Annan shook his head. “He died. Look, Ziva, I could have lied and said he went back to his family in the city. But I wouldn’t lie to you. Something is happening around here, and it’s dangerous. I can’t explain it, but I don’t think taking these weekly trips to the mountains is safe for you.”
She shoved a couple of pizza crusts into the oven and turned toward him. There was nothing about him that she liked. But she could see that he genuinely cared about her safety. “Look who’s talking. You’re a guard. It’s your job to keep us safe, and the best advice you can give me is to stay away from the place?”
He frowned. “You don’t seem to be concerned about Pynni.”
She looked at him in the eye. “He approached me once, talking about his suspicion of magical creatures in the mountains. I told him to go back to his family because this thing is going to kill him. But he stayed for the money, I guess. So no, this news doesn’t surprise me.”
“You know!”
“About the paranormals, yes I do. They live alongside us.”
Annan looked around suspiciously.
“They’re not invisible, Annan.”
“I know. But I used to think they wouldn’t harm you if you didn’t interfere with their business. They won’t touch the monks, and they won’t mess with any gods. But Pynni was harmless. He had no idea what was going on. He wouldn’t stick his nose into their paranormal business. Yet he was killed by a vamp right in front of me.”
His face turned red, and he started breathing in short puffs. Ziva pulled the pizzas out of the oven and put them on the bench to cool. She patted Annan on the shoulder.
“That must have been the first time you’ve seen a vamp up close. Must have been a shock.”
He shook his head. Then he nodded.
“Nothing to be ashamed of, Annan.”
“So you’ve seen vampires?”
“Yes.”
“Do they always look like that?”
“Like what? Fangs down, pale, blood dripping out of the mouth?” Ziva chuckled.
“The one I saw didn’t look like that. It looked—”
“Normal?”
He nodded.
“Yes, Annan. You see what they want you to see. The clichés about their appearance, habits, and behavior were created by popular human culture.” She pulled out a small knife and gave it to Annan. “What I am sure of is that a silver dagger can kill them. So keep this for your protection.”
He held the knife and looked at her. “Are you a hunter?”
She smiled. “Call me whatever you like. But I’m here only to make pizzas.”
“Why?”
“Except for the monks and those who eat my pizzas, anyone and anything else could be a vamp.”
“So you are a hunter!”
She shook her head. “Nope. But I do kill them when they get in my way.”
“What are you doing here, apart from making pizzas?”
“Do you know why Pynni was killed? He must have stumbled upon sensitive information that the paranormals didn’t want him to know. They didn’t want him to interfere with their business, whether he meant to do it or not.” She paused and then said, “You’re asking a lot of questions …”
A shadow darted across the doorway of the kitchen. Whatever it was grabbed Annan from behind and yanked him outside. Ziva pulled her knife and darted after them. Annan used the knife she’d just given him and swung it at the vampire. The vampire dodged, and the knife cut its arm. It pushed Annan down and ripped out his jugular with its fangs.
Ziva darted over and pierced the vampire’s heart from behind with her long dagger.
It melted into a shower of black liquid, pouring down on Annan.
She kneeled to check on him, but it was too late. His life had left him. Annan lay on the snow, eyes wide open. For a moment, she pitied him. But it was crunch time now. Her moment had come. She could sense it. Death was only natural, and she didn't have time to brood over it. This death was just one of the many she had seen.
“You shouldn’t have asked so many questions, Annan.” She tucked her dagger away and headed toward the temples and business area to let people know what had just happened.
Chapter 40
Doris tapped her long, manicured fingernails on the table as she eyed the pictures the monk in the temple had given her. He wasn’t just a monk, he was also her spy, and she was very proud to hav
e made him her subject. It made her feel a little more powerful than someone in her position should feel.
She was a minor deity. Where she came from—the branch of the house of gods that accommodated only fallen angels— one would need powerful connections to rise in rank, and that was well beyond her reach. She had to make her own way. She needed the Key of Aries. Once she had it, no one—no creature, angel, demon, god, or goddess—could bully her.
But should she trust these pictures?
Admittedly, the monk didn’t work for her voluntarily. She had threatened to rip his soul out, and she had killed a number of people as examples before she converted him. He didn’t know she couldn’t touch the monks or that those she’d killed were ordinary people. Was he really stupid enough to believe she could harm him, or was this a trick? Should she trust the images drawing from the reflection he saw on the holy water?
“Which of you is the one who changes my fate? And what do you have to do with the Key of Aries?” she asked the pictures, not expecting an answer.
She left her little cottage, hidden deep in the rocks of the mountains. Once outside, she looked across the snow-covered field to where the temple was, knowing the group of strangers had arrived and that one of them would change her fate.
She glanced at the pictures again. She could tell that two of the figures in them were male vampires. But she couldn’t make out what the other man and woman were. They traveled with vampires, so they couldn’t be ordinary humans.
She looked at the man again and estimated his age at somewhere in the late thirties. Those intense gray eyes. It was that gaze that made her hair stand on end—she had seen this man or a picture of him somewhere before.
She was sure the stunning woman in the picture wasn’t human. But what was she? The monk had told her one of the newcomers would change her fate. The monk didn’t know, but Doris knew it meant they were here for the Key of Aries.
Doris had been here for a few centuries, waiting for the key to rise. The time was coming, and she wasn’t about to let any creature snatch the key away from her, especially after her hundreds of years of work.
In the next few days, she would be able to leave this hiding place, go back to the house of gods, and claim her rightful position.
In seven days, she would be free to live for love—forever. Well, it was an eternity for her at least.
She needed to prevent those people from getting what belonged to her.
Quickly, she crossed dimensions so that no creatures on the Earth could see her. It was one of the abilities she was proud of. She approached a marketplace where the humans went about their daily business. She paid attention to no one except the four who had just arrived.
“What is that disgusting smell?” said a vampire.
“That’s what humans call pizza, Alex, and it’s delicious. Honestly, you don’t have to let everyone here that know you’re a vampire,” the woman said.
“I think it smells rather good,” the other vampire said.
Alex turned and looked at Blaise. “Oh come on, tell me you don’t think this smell is disgusting!”
“I’m not talking about the pizza. I smell fresh blood, and I’m hungry!” Blaise growled.
Doris rolled her eyes. She had just sent a vampire minion to kill Annan, and he had been foolish enough to leave traces behind. That must be the smell the vampire called Blaise was talking about.
“Well, I couldn’t smell the blood because my nose was stuffed up with the smell of that awful pizza. Let’s get the hell out of here. Where is the temple you said we’re visiting?” Alex asked.
Doris was sure none of these creatures could see across dimensions. They weren’t that special. They couldn’t see her. So why would the monk give her their pictures?
The two vampires, as gorgeous as any vampires she had ever met, were just that … vampires. As long as they weren’t from Xiilok, which she was sure by now they weren’t, she wouldn’t have to worry about them.
The woman was different though. Doris pressed her finger against the sheer wall between the dimensions and pushed lightly. She saw an uneasy expression appear on the woman’s face.
“Are you okay, Madeline?” the man asked.
Doris smiled to herself. So the woman could feel her presence, but the man couldn’t. He was just a man.
“Are you sure you men can find this place, Ciaran? I think we might need some assistance,” Madeline said as she looked up at the temple on the highest peak in the mountain range.
Ciaran… Doris thought. How familiar. She had heard that name before. What’s your last name? she wondered.
She whirled around him to see if he reacted.
Nothing.
She brushed her fingertips over his throat.
No reaction.
The monk had given her the pictures of all four of them and told her that one would change her fate. The vampires and the woman were supernatural, which she could deal with. But what about this human male? He intrigued her. Why was he with the bunch of them? If there was one who could change her fate, she had a gut feeling it might be him, but she didn’t know why. She didn’t need to know the reason though—if there was a chance any one of them would be her destroyer, then she had to act first. Going for all of them at once wouldn’t be wise. She would single them out, taking them one at a time.
Chapter 41
Looking across the snowfield, Alex winced. The ground was covered in a thick blanket of snow. If he were in his Vampire City in Antarctica, he’d know what lay beneath the white. But this mountain wasn’t his territory. A snowy field like this could be a death trap for him.
“Well, I guess that’s why we brought you with us, Blaise. You’ll know the best way to get to the temple.”
Blaise chuckled and said, “Cross the field and enter through the roof.”
“Even I know that much. But can we cross this snowfield safely? I don’t fly. Neither do you.”
“Chicken.”
“I’d call it being cautious.”
Alex looked into the distance. Temples and houses were jammed together like those in a small village in England. The temple they wanted to enter was isolated and sat at the far end of the dense village. He had no issue with going past the village and the humans, but he didn’t like not knowing the territory of other vampires.
Apart from staking him, there wasn’t much humans could do to him. He was the mayor of the Vampire City, and he had connections with the multiverse and the crossworld. A vampire of his caliber couldn’t be easily killed. But the vampires who had crossed worlds—the hybrids—were his concern.
Blaise popped up from the small shrubs behind which they had been hiding. Alex pulled him back down.
“Have you been to that temple before?”
“It’s called the Aries temple. I’ve been to the temple, but not to where the key is.”
“Why not?”
“It’s complicated.”
“But the key is in the temple, right?”
“Yes, but it’s not going to come out and say hi to you. It only shows itself to certain individuals.”
“What do you mean, Blaise? We’ve come this far. I don’t really want to deal with any more tricks.”
“Don’t you think I want to get the key and get the hell out of here? But we have to be in the right place at the right time for a chance to see the key. The key will decide if we’re allowed to see it.”
“So we might not be able to see it at all?”
“Dude, if you don’t buy the lottery ticket, what’s your chance of winning the big prize?”
“This isn’t a lottery, Blaise.”
“It is for me. And I’ll take every chance I get. So will the creatures you’re hunting for. All of us will be in the general vicinity of the key when it wakes in a few days. We need to get familiar with our surroundings and be prepared. There are truckloads of the hybrids in the temple.”
“Hybrids?”
“Yep. Are you scared of them, Alex?”
>
Alex shook his head. “I don’t understand them. Anyway, we’re looking for a soul trader. Let’s find it and then get the hell out of here. Ideally before the key wakes. I don’t like this whole Aries key saga.”
“See … that’s the problem. You’re so fixated on the fact that the thing you’re looking for is a soul trader—”
“Because it is.”
“No, soul trading is what it does. It’s not what it is.”
Alex sighed. “Okay, you’ve got a point. It could be anything. Do you know what form they usually take?”
“They’re half vamps, half shapeshifters.”
“I know that much, but what form will it shift into?”
“I don’t know. But I don’t think it will take a human form.”
“Why didn’t you say so earlier, Blaise? This is important information!”
“Do you think your human friend, Ciaran, would lend me his weapons if I told him I have a feeling that you guys are looking for the wrong form of creature?”
Alex didn’t know what to say.
Blaise snorted. “Probably not. But I’m telling you now, so stop looking for something that looks like a human.”
Alex nodded. “All right, I’ll be looking for anything but a hybrid shapeshifter in human form. Can we go now? Do you know the way or not?”
Blaise nodded. “The snowfield isn’t safe for us,” he said, “but I know the stretch around the edge of it. Outside the stone fence is fine. I’ve used that route before.”
Alex pointed at the waist-high stone wall that snaked around the edge of the cliffs. “You mean outside that fence? It’s a long way down …”
“Only if you slip. And if you’re that clumsy, you shouldn’t have taken this job.” Blaise stood and walked toward the fence.
“Not that I had a choice,” Alex muttered and followed.
