Darkling

by Sabolic, Mima

  “Unfortunately, I’ve seen his impoliteness,” I said, recalling, once again, those elongated canines.

  “Those are not light words, dear.”

  That was true. Balthazar regarded me calmly, without a smile. This time he was serious.

  “Humans mostly don’t see that difference,” he said.

  “I’ve noticed that Baldur has lots of opponents,” I said, between bites.

  “Apparently you’ve chosen interesting company for yourself. He does have opponents who disagree with him on certain issues, but they are not in the majority. After all, he’s an Elder and that has to be respected.”

  “Do you agree with his ideas?” I asked, carefully.

  “What ideas specifically?”

  Of course I didn’t know what ideas! I decided to bluff. I’d fish something out of him.

  “His relationship with the Vocati,” I said, feeling it to be safe ground; but his eyes widened and his look turned harder. Relationship with the Vocati? What could that trigger? I had meant the way Baldur treated them, but apparently this was something else. So what relationship did he have? He caught them for his Project, which was to better know the enemy; he kept them in cells and created teams to work with them. But was it all he did? Was it all really because he wanted to know the enemy better? My thoughts took an unforeseen direction, and Balthazar’s intensity only seemed to push them further.

  “His pretext of wanting to get to know the Vocati better,” I finally said, and his eyes turned into a flame of seriousness. So I was definitely on the right track. But what was Baldur’s plan, anyway? What was he getting out of the Project? Damn slick vampire—I’d known something was off with him! Aside from the fangs.

  “These are dark waters that you’re swimming in, Nika,” Balthazar said in a firm voice.

  I had succeeded in finding something out. It wasn’t about Belun—but this seemed way more serious. Balthazar’s behavior was so intense that this had to be a gigantic thing!

  “Where did you hear those things?” he asked.

  I took a sip of my fresh orange juice, and smiled at him. It was neither a teasing nor a gentle smile, but it said: we all have our secrets. I mean, what else I could do. It wasn’t like someone had really told me about it; I had figured it out by myself. And I guessed he wouldn’t believe me if I had said so.

  “You really did choose your company wisely,” Balthazar mused, but I could feel his inner turmoil.

  “Tromsø is the vampire capital this year,” I let out a little laugh, but the twitch of his lips wasn’t exactly a sincere smile. After that, the atmosphere seemed to lighten. I knew he was planning to trick me into revealing my source; the problem was—there wasn’t any.

  “How long has it been since you arrived at the compound?”

  “Almost three months,” I said.

  “You know many things for having been there just a little while. Belun shouldn’t have permitted it.”

  Oh, so Belun was the card he was playing! I looked at him with my best poker face, not revealing even the smallest emotion. But then the thought struck me: What if he thought I knew too much? Would he erase my memory, or worse?

  But Balthazar was a businessman after all.

  “Let’s play this way. I answer your question and you answer mine. Now, how do you know about Baldur’s intentions?”

  “It all started with his character. Since the beginning he has seemed irritated and suspicious.” Okay, this wasn’t leading anywhere. How could I phrase it to seem as if I had said something important? Tertius crossed my mind.

  “First, I heard Baldur had many opponents and that his ideas were controversial—that even the Warriors are not very keen on him—which planted a big neon question mark in my mind. But I only received vague answers: that they disagreed with him on some issues, that he’s too liberal, it’s his politics, and so on. Then I had an intriguing conversation with Tertius, which at first didn’t seem to make any sense. But now . . .” I chewed on my fingernail, recalling Tertius’ words. “He mentioned that powerful people want more power, and the one who thinks he’s at the bottom of the ladder is always the weak link because he craves status quo.” The minute I said it, a sudden thought emerged.

  “I was sure he was talking about Baldur, and in light of this relationship with the Vocati, it only tells me one thing! Baldur wants his own Vocati army! He doesn’t want to know them, he wants to catch them and use them! Status quo could refer to his position right now. Kyrill is not a problem to him, but the other Elders might be.” It shot out of my mouth.

  I needed a second to think about what I had just said, about its possibilities. I had uttered it without any previous thought, and it seemed too logical and natural. Balthazar stared at me in bewilderment, looking more shocked than I was. Whether it was my knowledge that startled him, or the things I had said about Tertius, or all of it together, I didn’t know—but the puzzle had finally come together. And Baldur was the bad guy. Shocker. I wondered if a race that doesn’t have its own mythology lives in one instead, because, in my mind, Baldur had just sprouted horns and a pointy tail.

  “Nika, are you aware of what you’re saying?” Balthazar finally asked, his voice cold.

  How much truth was in my words? Had my imagination completely taken over my logic? But something inside me stood firm behind what I had said, as if I had heard Baldur himself stating those evil plans.

  “I’m adjusting.”

  “Tertius said all of that?”

  “No, not all. I just came up with the rest,” I admitted, looking at him.

  Balthazar nodded and lowered his eyes to his plate. I almost could hear the whirring of his thoughts. He silently continued to eat.

  Was I right? How the hell would Tertius have known such a thing—well, he knew a lot, apparently. And suddenly my wish to stop taking the pills strengthened. If he was right about so many things . . .

  “Now, I believe it’s my turn,” I said, after a long silence.

  Balthazar looked as if I had yanked him out of his thoughts.

  “Alright.” He attempted a polite smile.

  “What’s going on with Belun?”

  “In the last two weeks, Andrei Belun has been a hot topic among certain people, which made me curious enough to investigate.”

  “Certain people? Priests, perhaps?” His eyes widened at my question, but this time he didn’t dodge.

  “Yes, the Priests. But not any Priests.” His mouth tilted. “Have you heard of the Priests’ Underground?”

  “No.”

  “It’s a network of unbound Priests who do various things under the radar of the Elders. Mostly they’re Baldur’s opponents. Their headquarters change with the seasons; the location is the most kept secret among the society. Even I don’t know where they are at any time. I used to, but for some time now, the Priests have toughened their security. Baldur has been hard on them, which, by the way, was the reason he and Kyrill had a disagreement. Kyrill isn’t keen on Baldur’s destruction of our own people solely because they’re his opponents. That led to the modern division among my race.”

  So Baldur was busting a Priest Underground. I guess he needed Warriors for that, which made the question of why the Warriors weren’t cool with him a no-brainer.

  “How hard is Baldur on them exactly?”

  “He doesn’t kill them; he throws them into underground dungeons, then starves them and takes as much information from them as he can get. And they do have a lot to tell. Underground work brings you a lot of knowledge.”

  “And he needs Warriors for it,” I said.

  “Right. Now you understand the animosity that some Warriors have towards him.”

  “Jeez, Baldur’s mean... Meaner than I previously thought.” I shook my head in disbelief.

  “Back to Belun. I have received many questions about him, so I wanted to find out everything I could—which, unfortunately, isn’t much. I couldn’t get more than whispers of his whereabouts; I followed the path, but it onl
y went deeper. All I can say with certainty is that he’s gone Underground.”

  My eyes widened in bewilderment.

  “I don’t know what happened, but he passed through two circles of Priests only to disappear even deeper. I managed to find out who those Priests are, but I haven’t been able to find them. Although, I’ve heard one odd thing—he needed some sort of healing.” My face made him stop.

  “Everything okay?”

  “It’s not the first time I’ve heard of the healing. A psychic lady back in Tromsø said that Belun’s leaving had something to do with him being physically hurt. He was hurt in that Vocati attack near Oslo, and he wasn’t healing well,” I said, feeling fear creep up my spine.

  “I know about the attack, but those Vocati couldn’t have made a wound that he needed an Underground Priest to patch up.”

  “Then what created such wounds?”

  “Originals, or Elders,” Balthazar said, seemingly lost in disturbing thoughts.

  Four Vocati had attacked us that night, and since they were all dead, we saw that there wasn’t any Original among them. That left two other possibilities.

  “Baldur?” I asked.

  “I doubt it. Even in the case of a huge fight—and I would’ve heard about that—he would’ve helped Belun to heal. There would’ve been no need for him to run to the Underground. His leaving suggests that he was apparently hiding something from Baldur. I’d sell some of my longevity for the answer.”

  I couldn’t imagine the reason for Belun’s behavior. His leaving, his hiding, his going into some illegal Underground thing? Why? Or better yet: who was he protecting? This whole thing was much bigger than I had thought.

  “What about Tertius? He’s Original,” Balthazar asked, looking intensely at me.

  “I doubt it. I think I’d have found out if that had happened.” Belun wasn’t there during the last session, and Tertius would’ve hinted at something. I mean, I definitely would’ve known if Tertius had hurt Belun somehow. But then I recalled Lee’s and Jacob’s whispers from that morning; what was all that about?

  “I know that Kyrill hasn’t left his court for some time. This leaves the possibility that Belun crossed paths with another Original sometime between the Oslo attack and his departure,” Balthazar mused.

  “I don’t know how that could have happened. The only wound he was having trouble with was from the time of the attack, which means the encounter with the Original had to have happened about the same time,” I said, feeling my hands shake a bit.

  “It could’ve happened before the attack. The poison needs time to spread in the blood.”

  “Poison?”

  “That’s why he needed someone who knew how to heal those wounds. Not all of the Priests know. That’s probably why he went deeper into the Underground. But the fact that he did it behind Baldur’s back is highly intriguing. As a matter of fact, until last night, I even thought Belun was dead—after Doris told me about his disconnected phone.”

  “Does Doris know about all of this?” I asked.

  “No. And I would like it to stay that way. It’s for her own good since her father is in constant contact with Baldur.”

  “What changed your mind about Belun still being alive?”

  Balthazar coughed and drank some water.

  “The fact that he was seen a few days ago.” That news made me think of Theo’s manila folder.

  “I assume Theodore is aware of this situation, unlike Doris.”

  “Why do you think that?” he asked, but his face didn’t show any trace of confusion.

  “He’s a Priest, isn’t he?”

  Balthazar nodded with a tiny smile. “Good eye. What told you?”

  “The feeling I got from him was the same one I got from a young Priest I met in Tromsø.”

  “That’s a very subtle difference only vampires can feel.” He frowned a little.

  “Apparently not only vampires.” I couldn’t beat around the bush anymore. “So where was Belun last seen?” I asked.

  “Not sure, but I guess somewhere in Europe.” Okay, that wasn’t much.

  “How’s Theo connected with Belun?”

  “He heard of the interest in Belun, and came here offering his connections to me. We are both working on the issue now.”

  “I’ve been told that something’s coming up at the compound.” I remembered my talk with Julia. “Two Inquirers have felt some change in the atmosphere and heard some whispers among vampires. Baldur’s name was mentioned.”

  Balthazar’s brows lifted, but he didn’t seem surprised. The next moment, the entrance door burst open and the kids flew in. I guessed our talk was over, because the children ran into their daddy’s open arms. Screaming.

  “Hey sleepy, I thought you’d call.” Doris smiled at me.

  “I would have, but Balthazar and I were having an interesting talk.”

  “Oh, really?” Fortunately her string of thoughts was broken by little Sophie pulling her by the hand toward her dad. Balthazar played with his kids for a few minutes, and then I noticed a look he gave Theo. He was probably going to let him in on our little conversation.

  They left the room and I wanted to join them, but it didn’t feel like they had invited me. So I spent the next few hours with Doris and Clara. They spoke of our next destination (Majorca) and our next host. That would be Doris’s cousin, and she was psyched to see him. We would be leaving Nîmes in two days, off to Palma de Majorca. Wow, who would have guessed that in three months I’d be in three different European countries!

  The whole day was passed in family mode, which was pretty annoying. I had just discovered so many important things and I wanted to elaborate on them! But Balthazar and Theo seemed rather relaxed. Although, Theo did give me a pointed look when he left Balthazar’s office earlier that day.

  The thought of Balthazar thinking that Belun might have been dead was bugging me. Was Belun in that much trouble? Why?

  He had gone from being a great Warrior to fleeing to the Priest Underground, a place of highly illegal activity. And according to Balthazar, that was a dangerous road. Why had he turned on Baldur, I mean beside all the obvious reasons, and why now? And that theory of mine, was it true? Was Baldur really forming a Vocati army for himself? Was it even possible that Tertius had already known about it?

  Oh, and the million dollar question—was Belun ever going to return to Tromsø, and if not, what was going to happen to me? I had a feeling that shit was gonna hit the fan very soon.

  After I had returned from running, I got a late night surprise visit.

  “We haven’t had a chance to talk,” Theo said, stepping into my room. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything,” he added. But no, I had just returned and Doris was in her room taking one of those eon long phone calls with Aidan. So I was free and eager to talk to him.

  “I received these pictures of Belun last night,” he said, handing over the manila folder.

  I pulled out four photos of Belun. At first I didn’t recognize him, but a second later I was overwhelmed with warmth. It really was him.

  In the first photo, he was crossing a street, wearing a black jacket and a sweater hoodie.

  “Isn’t there any visible license plate?” I asked, mesmerized with his image.

  “No, I checked them all. Even the guy I got them from couldn’t tell me anything about where they were taken.”

  “Too bad.”

  In the second photo, Belun was talking to a man. They stood in front of a restaurant, and the name was illegible.

  “Here, I brought a magnifying glass,” Theo said, seeing how close I was looking at them. I sat on my bed and gestured for him to join me. He hesitated a moment, but sat down. I turned on the reading lamp and looked through the glass.

  In the third picture Belun was alone, exiting a building. He was wearing the same black jacket, but his hoodie wasn’t up. He was looking at something to his right, and his hands were in his pockets. The jacket was loose and I could see the black shirt
with the raven on it. The same one he had worn that night we danced. My heart jumped at that little detail.

  “You recognize this guy?” I asked him, referring to the person Belun was talking to in the second picture.

  “No. Neither does Balthazar.”

  I studied the restaurant more closely. Its name was illegible due to a reflection. The building was the color of sand, and the people were all Caucasians, dressed normally. Based on the buildings, streets, and the way people looked, I would agree with Balthazar that it was probably somewhere in Europe.

  No one was reading any newspapers, and the restaurant menus were too far away to be readable.

  “The climate seems similar to this one here,” I noticed, and Theo agreed.

  Then I saw something on the restaurant entrance door.

  “You think this is a letter?”

  “Hmm,” Theo looked closer at the half-opened restaurant door in the image. “It could be a reverse Cyrillic letter ‘U’.”

  “In what language?”

  “Well, it’s used in Russia and its ex-republics, also in Serbia and some other Balkan countries. And Bulgaria, as far as I know.” He continued looking at the photo. The letter he had mentioned looked like a reverse letter Y.

  “It’s probably in Eastern Europe. I’ll talk to Balthazar about it,” he said, flipping through the pictures.

  “Is it possible that Belun’s there?”

  “Could be. The Priest Underground is strong in the Balkans and Russia.”

  I made a mental note to check the Cyrillic letter later.

  “I was fascinated to hear about your conversation with Balthazar. So many things . . .” Theo said.

  “Yeah.”

  “That stuff is huge! I still can’t comprehend your knowledge and involvement in all this,” he said with a shy look. “I’m curious about how you knew I was a Priest.”

  “Oh, I met Vuk back in Tromsø. He’s a Priest too, and you’ve been giving me the same feeling that he gave me.”

  “Interesting. I didn’t know humans could discern the difference.”

  “I was told similarly after the Vocati attack. But apparently, some people can.”