The Vampire Gift 6: Secrets of Hope

by E. M. Knight

  “No. Exactly. It wasn’t. That’s why they created objects called torrials, which maintained the seals by themselves.”

  “Objects that do magic?” The disbelief is clear in the voices. “That is ludicrous.”

  “Objects that direct the flow of weaves,” I explain. “Objects that can be fed a certain amount of power and sustain it for a very long time. Maybe even for lifetimes.”

  “You lie.”

  “Why would I?”

  Silence. And then, “You’ve seen these torrials?”

  “Yes,” I say. “I’ve used them.”

  The witches, all three, suddenly surge up. Before I can react, they surround me.

  They reach out and put their hands over my head. The force they control materializes around me and bonds me in place as if I’ve been frozen in a block of ice.

  For the first time, I hear their individual voices. Arguing.

  “She lies.”

  “She does not!”

  “She claims to have seen things that are impossible.”

  “Her heart says it’s true!”

  The voices dissolve into indistinguishable noise. All the while I’m still bound by that force.

  Terror threatens to overwhelm me. Terror at how easily these three women can and have overpowered me here.

  Suddenly, a blast of alarm rips through them. “She’s a vampire!”

  They fly back.

  The force around me disappears. All three women have their faces pointed at me. No longer are they all in sync.

  “It’s true,” one of them says, and this time, she’s actually speaking. Not the telepathic transmission. “You’ve been given the curse.”

  “I’m not a vampire,” I say. “Not here. Not anymore. None of the gifts I’d gained are accessible to me.”

  Confusion radiates from the women.

  Then, one of them steps forward. “Of course,” she whispers. “The trip here diverted your powers. They’re hidden from you… and us.”

  She streams around me. I don’t dare move. When she’s right behind my back, she mutters a spell.

  The moment the words fall from her lips, a great shockwave crashes into me. It’s like a massive elastic band was stretched out from me and then snapped.

  But then, all the powers I thought I had lost flow into me again. The strength comes first to my arms. My vision sharpens. My senses all heighten, doubling, tripling, quadrupling in degree.

  I feel my claws again at the tips of my fingers. I feel my fangs on the top row of my teeth.

  Most of all, I no longer feel mortal.

  My lips form a grim and almost sadistic smile. “Thank you for that,” I say sweetly. “But aren’t you afraid now of what I can do?”

  At blistering speed I launch myself at the two women in front of me. They try to catch me in that force, but my perception is so enhanced that I’m able to counter it with my own magic.

  I slice through the weaves without any effort.

  I’m on the first woman in a flash. I press my teeth to her neck.

  But before I break skin, I leap off and fly toward the other. She tries to defend herself with the same magic but cannot.

  Human witches, no matter how powerful, are no match for a vampire witch.

  I swing around her and catch her by the neck. “Do you see what you have done?” I whisper in her ear.

  Then I jump away and go at the third one, just to prove to them that I can.

  Halfway to her, I crash into an invisible wall.

  “ENOUGH!” a voice hollers in my head. I’m astounding by its strength and intensity.

  I go still.

  “We’re now on equal footing,” I say slowly. “So all of you need to tread carefully.”

  I turn my head over my shoulder, looking at the two masked witches I left behind.

  They’ve composed themselves completely in the short interval of time.

  “We will treat you as an equal,” their combined voice rings through my head.

  “Good,” I say.

  “Come sit by the fire.”

  The stool they’ve given me morphs into something akin to the bench they were sitting on.

  We all take our places by the flames.

  “You are very strong,” the women tell me. “The style of weaves you make is rudimentary. But your strength allows you to get away with it and challenge even us.”

  “Why don’t you tell me who you are?”

  “We’ve told you. We came to this realm because we wanted to explore a different world.”

  “And? Twelve hundred years is a long time.”

  “The flow of time differs here.”

  “What do you live on? What do you eat?”

  “Wrong, meaningless questions,” they chastise. “You don’t understand. We exist here outside of time. Our bodies do not change. Our cells do not age. We require no sustenance, because we are frozen, yet at the same time alive.”

  I look at each one of them in turn. “Why do you hide your faces?”

  “Ah.” Sadness. “Because we have sacrificed them to live this life.”

  I take a deep breath. I’m infinitely curious about what they mean… but I also know when it’s prudent to show some respect.

  So I simply nod and say, “I understand.”

  “The portal that you used to come to us… you uncovered it?” they ask. “You discovered it, opened it, all on your own?”

  I shake my head. “No. I was being...” I swallow, reconciling those dark memories. “I was being tortured. When I came onto it.”

  “Who can have power over one like you?”

  “Another witch,” I say. “A vampire witch, who’s been alive for many, many years longer than I have.”

  “This is common now?” they ask. “Vampires, fusing their curse with witchcraft?”

  “No,” I shake my head. “But it’s an entirely different world than what I’d gotten used to, I grew up a regular human girl.”

  “Tell us.”

  “I can’t. I don’t know how much longer I have here. I don’t know if I’ll just be sucked back.”

  I feel the amusement in their words. “You may remain here as long as you wish, child,” they say. “Your body on Earth is safe in the same spot in time as when you left it.”

  I snort. “Safe,” I murmur.

  Then, not knowing what else to do, I regale the story of the past few months as quickly as I can.

  It seems to fascinate them. The idea of vampires living together in functioning covens astounds them.

  They ask ceaseless questions about the practicality of that. About what it’s like living amongst so many immortals. About the currents of power and the royal hierarchy. About how order is maintained, and on and on and on.

  I get an inkling in the back of my mind that I know where this is heading. And at the very end, my suspicions are confirmed.

  “We want you to transform us,” they tell me.

  Hearing it said out loud makes it somehow more vital than just having the request in my thoughts.

  “You sneered at me when I asked if you were vampires,” I remind them. “Why would I give you the gift?” A sense of unease washes over me. “I don’t even know if I can do it here.”

  “You cannot,” they inform me. “It must be done on Earth.”

  I narrow my eyes. “I told you what Morgan is doing to me. The moment I return…”

  “We will help you.”

  I was hoping, hoping against hope…

  “How?” I ask. I’ve been burned too many times before to simply take strangers at their word.

  “You will not return to Earth unprepared. We will infuse you with our collective strength.”

  “Again… how?” I ask.

  In perfect synchrony, as usual, the three women pull back their sleeves and reveal brandings upon brandings of the same types of runes I saw outside.

  “You will be marked,” they say. “Just as we are.”

  The patterns on their arms begin to
glow.

  Chapter Nine

  James

  The pack’s secret lair

  I stand in front of the secret door, all alone, and examine the intricate markings.

  After the question posed about magic and its use to us, I commanded everybody to leave. I want to be by myself in this place, near the door, as I consider exactly what happened between me and Smithson.

  It was not the Mind Gift that I used. Neither, consciously, was it magic.

  Then what?

  The only explanation I can think of is that this door—this portal—somehow potentiated the energy in the air…

  And I was somehow able to tap into that energy.

  Through… magic?

  Not as far as I can tell.

  Somebody enters the room. I don’t need to look or even use my vampire awareness to know it’s Victoria.

  She is the only one who would dare break a direct order like this.

  She comes up to me and stops just a few feet away. I ignore her.

  She’ll have to be the first to speak.

  A long minute passes. I feel her biding her time. I continue ignoring her, simply gazing at the markings on the door.

  Finally, she speaks. “James. We have to figure out what we’re going to do next.”

  I turn around very slowly. I eye her up and down. “Aside from ignoring direct orders, you mean.”

  She shoots me a glance. “Don’t be stupid.”

  “You like to push me.”

  She takes a step closer. “Maybe that’s because,” she says, looking into my eyes, “I know you need to be pushed.”

  For a moment, I feel an inexplicable urge to kiss her.

  I turn away. “No. You just enjoy needling me.”

  “Then why do you tolerate it?”

  “Trust me,” I growl. “Sometimes, I don’t think I should.”

  She laughs and walks around me so I see her again. She focuses on the markings on the door.

  “This is quite something,” she murmurs. “Don’t you think?”

  “It is what it is,” I say nonchalantly.

  “Yeah. Right. You don’t believe that.”

  “Since when are you such an expert on what I believe?”

  “Since I rescued you from your Father. Since the moment I looked at you and recognized your potential.”

  I snort. “You’re patronizing me. Both of us know I am the more powerful vampire between us.”

  “Yes. But I consciously gave my powers away. It was a sacrifice I had to make for the greater good. It was the only way for us—for you and me—to achieve our ultimate goal.”

  “Ultimate goal?” I ask softly. “You speak as if nothing’s changed since the day we met. Everything is different between us now!”

  She smiles. It’s almost sad. “That’s true. But it doesn’t have to be. I am the same woman now that I was when I fed on the Ancient’s blood. The only difference is your perception of my strength. Mentally, I am exactly the same.”

  “Strength is all that matters amongst vampires,” I remind her. “The hierarchy makes it so.”

  “Are you so much a slave to nature that you cannot see reason?” she asks.

  “Reason? What does this have to do with reason?”

  “Everything, James. We’re at the start of a new frontier. You’re building your coven. You have this new pack. You’ve become their leader. Your plan with the Fang chasers didn’t work out, but that’s because they were infected by the Narwhark. Now it’s time to plan for the future, to figure out what you must do. What we must do, if we are to follow you.”

  “You all already follow me,” I frown.

  “This little group?” she sneers. “That’s not enough for you. It never will be.”

  “This is just a start.”

  “A start toward what, James? You need an ally. You need a purpose. You need someone you can trust.”

  “You want me to put my trust in you?” I shake my head. “After all that you did? How many times have you switched sides over the course of all this, Victoria?”

  “That may be,” she admits. “But I won’t be doing it anymore.”

  “Once an eel, always an eel,” I say under my breath. “You want me to confide in you? Why, so you can go plot with Smithson behind my back?”

  “Smithson is nothing to me!”

  “Oh, really? Then why were you the first to rush to his aid after what happened?” My eyes narrow. “True motives are revealed in the heat of the moment.”

  “You idiot,” she says under her breath. “You really think I care what happens to Smithson? Go get him right now, execute him, it’s all within your rights. You won’t hear a word of protest out of me.”

  “Then why’d you run to him so fast?”

  “I had to know if there were trails of magic,” she hisses. “We all saw what occurred. Yet I felt nothing rip through the air. That much sudden force, it should have left a shadow, a hint of something. A trace of the Elemental Forces!”

  “And?” I ask darkly. “What did you discover? We’re alone now, nobody here. Tell me what you know. If you want me to trust you, this is a first step in the right direction.”

  She looks me up and down, considering.

  “You won’t like it if I do,” she says after a long moment.

  “Try me.”

  “Then yes, James. I felt magic. The barest hint of it, all-but-hidden from me. But it was there.”

  “So you’re saying I used it?”

  “I’m saying it was there,” she insists. “I’m not to presume how it got there.”

  “I’m not so dense as that. I see the accusation.”

  “Magic is not a weakness,” she says. “It’s not anything to be frightened of. We discussed this already.”

  I stifle my laughter. “Trust me, it’s not fright that holds me.”

  “Then why deny what you did? Why resist what we all saw take place?”

  “Because I don’t feel any magic, dammit,” I snarl. “You want the truth? I’ll give it to you. I got angry. Smithson pissed me off. What happened next, we all saw. But how I did it, or if it was even me, I do not know.”

  “You must have a block,” she says after a moment’s consideration.

  “What?”

  “A block. Some witches experience it. Their minds are capable of channeling the Elemental Forces. But that ability is hidden deep in their subconscious. They are not able to control when or how it comes out.”

  I shake my head very slowly. “And you think that’s applicable to me?”

  “It must be.”

  “You have no evidence. No proof.”

  “I have experience.”

  “With women,” I stress. “This is different.”

  “Maybe. But also, maybe not. Both sexes access the same forces.”

  “How many male wielders of magic have you dealt with?” I ask. “How many have you known?”

  “Me? Just one. Yet now, I might be talking to the second.”

  I shake my head. “Riyu isn’t like me. It makes sense that he can wield magic. His mind… well, he was born with the mind of a woman.”

  “Yet biologically he’s not,” she tells me. “His cells all have the X and Y chromosomes. Just like yours.”

  “Magic depends on priming of the mind, as you’ve so often alluded to,” I remind her. “For a regular man to be able to use it implies that he is…”

  “That he is what?” she demands. “You’re not considering all the possibilities, James! What if there are two intertwined, yet opposing versions of the Elements? What if men wield one and women another?”

  “You’re saying that Riyu wields the female type?”

  “It makes sense, doesn’t it? I’ve talked to him. He was taught by a witch. But Riyu is an anomaly. He is the exception. He is not representative of the whole.”

  “So Riyu doesn’t count?”

  “Magic should be accessible to both sexes,” she says. “I see no reason why it is solely the domain o
f women. But maybe we’ve been looking for channelers in completely the wrong way. Maybe—like with today’s experience—it’s because the female currents are invisible to men. And the male ones, invisible to females.”

  “You said you sensed something, though,” I remind her. “When you went to Smithson.”

  “It was the faintest afterglow,” she admits. “Evidence enough that magic had been done. But not what kind, what sort, or even by whom.”

  “You truly think I have this ability?” I look at my hands. “Me?”

  “Yes. And I also think it’s hidden. You’re unaware of it, so you reject it. Maybe… maybe it’s like that for all men.”

  My lips form a thin, narrow line. But my mind races.

  Could what she is saying be true? Could that be the actual reason men did not realize they could wield magic before?

  “It’s this space, James, that did it,” she continues. “The sealed door. The warp in reality that manifests itself here. All around the cavern, the Elements are changed. In your moment of anger, you triggered something in you. This space primed you for it. You couldn’t have done it anywhere else.”

  “That almost stretches the limits of belief,” I say. “Isn’t it all a little… too coincidental?”

  “It can be as coincidental as it needs to be. What matters is what actually happened. So, do it.” She positions herself in front of me. “Get angry. Blast me with magic. Do it again!”

  I scowl. “You overstep yourself,” I say in low warning. “You presume too much.”

  “What? Are you scared you’re going to hurt me? Are you too much of a coward to lash out against a woman? I am telling you to do it, James. Don’t hold back!”

  Irritation creeps into me. “You think it’s so easy?” I sneer. “You tell me to get mad, and it just happens? I’ve been mad many times before, and not once did it trigger magic.”

  “You weren’t in this space,” she reiterates. She challenged me, a fierce glaze in her eyes. “Are you even going to try, or will you just admit failure because you’re weak?”

  Irritation spikes up and shifts into agitation. “I know you’re just goading me.”

  “You’re scared. You’re terrified! All your life, you had your Mother to protect you—”

  “Enough.”

  “All you do—”