Sentinel (Vampire Conclave: Book 2)

by S. J. West

  “No,” Julian says. “I mean his presence as in the special something that each person leaves behind with their possessions. Maybe you’ll find something that triggers a memory.”

  I nod as I begin to understand what he’s referring to.

  I turn and look down the short hallway with two doors on either side of it.

  “Which one is his?” I ask Nadia.

  “Your dad’s room is the one on the left.”

  I walk over to the door and place my hand on the knob. I thought there might be some indication that the room recognizes me—a flash of light, a sound—but nothing special happens. I turn the knob and push the door open. When I first step inside, I feel a warmth surround me as if the room is welcoming me home.

  The space isn’t as grand or as large as I thought it would be. The word “comfortable” comes to mind as I look at the large four-poster bed pushed up against the wall to my right. Velvet maroon drapes hang from each vertical wooden column and run around the edges of the wooden panel they support. A matching comforter lays across the bed with two basic pillows tucked underneath it against the headboard. Directly across from the bed on the opposite wall is a fireplace with a wooden mantel and a large decorative mirror hanging above it. A small seating area, composed of a couch and a chair, is arranged between the bed and fireplace. On the wall directly across from the doorway is a bay window with a writing desk set in the middle of it, so that the person sitting there has a view of the surrounding forest. I don’t see much in the way of personal possessions that my father left behind. There are a couple of framed black and white pictures on the mantel, but there is little else in the room.

  I feel slightly disheartened. I was hoping to find more to take home with me. Not ready to give up on my quest to find something personal of my father’s, I walk over to his desk and start opening drawers, but I find them all empty. I sigh in disappointment while resting my hands on the desktop and leaning forward slightly with my head hung low.

  And then I see it …

  There is a small carving in the center of the desktop of the sun being eclipsed by the moon. It’s not so much the picture that draws my attention, but the way it shimmers in the sunlight. I reach over and place my hand on the carving, only to discover that it can travel straight through the wood in that spot. I snatch my hand out because, well, for one thing, it’s just weird to see your hand go through wood, and another because I felt something touch my hand below the surface.

  “Okay, Sarah,” I say to myself in an encouraging tone, “don’t chicken out now.”

  I reach out again and watch in amazement as my hand disappears into some magical compartment hidden by the carving. I feel around and find that the compartment is in the shape of a small box. I feel two items. One is made of what feels like paper, and the other is cold to the touch like metal. I grab them both and pull them out to examine each more closely.

  I soon discover that the metal object is a necklace. The chain and pendant are either made of silver or white gold. I can never tell the difference unless a necklace has been marked with its karat purity. The edges of the pendant are scalloped, and in the center is a shiny stone that’s milky white but has shades of opalescent blue intermixed. I set the necklace on the desk and hold up the picture with one hand directly into a ray of sunlight filtering in through the windows. It’s a picture of the room I’m standing in, but that’s it. No one is in the room.

  As I ponder the reason why my father would hide a picture of his room in his desk, I lower the photo out of the sunlight and take hold of it with both hands. The moment the fingers of my other hand touch the picture, it’s as if time suddenly comes to a complete standstill. I begin to feel a pulling sensation on my skin and wonder if I’ve unknowingly stepped into a magical trap. I faintly realize that I should have invited Julian and Nadia in before I snooped around my father’s room. I could be burning alive and they would be helpless to save me because I didn’t invite them inside. The world around me goes dark, and I feel myself begin to faint as I grow weak in the knees and hit the floor.

  “Hey,” I hear a young man say. “Hey lady, are you all right?”

  When I open my eyes, I immediately know that I’m still in my father’s room, because I’m staring directly at the legs of his writing desk.

  “I wouldn’t normally complain about a woman being in my room,” the young man continues behind me, “but if you get caught in here, I’ll get in trouble for the third time this semester. My parents will kill me if I get kicked out of this school.”

  I turn over onto my back to face the boy talking to me, wondering how he was able to get into the room in the first place.

  As soon as I see his face, I don’t have to wonder anymore.

  My world begins to spin out of control, and I start to breathe so fast I fear I might hyperventilate and pass out again. As I stare into the kind brown eyes staring down at me in confusion and worry, there’s only one word running through my mind.

  “Dad?”

  “Wow,” the young version of my father says, looking at me like he suspects I’ve lost my mind, “you must’ve really hit your head hard, lady. You’re way older than I am. For me to be your dad, we would have to defy the laws of the universe or time itself.”

  Time. Defy time.

  I quickly sit up and throw my arms around my dad’s shoulders, holding him as tightly as I can. Right now, I don’t care that he doesn’t know me. All that matters is that I know him.

  I feel my father’s body stiffen in my arms. I’m sure it’s partly due to shock, because he doesn’t know who the hell I am, and partially due to the strength with which I’m holding him. I loosen my grip and reluctantly let him go. He quickly stands to his feet and takes one step away from me. The look on his face tells me that he’s slightly frightened by my presence in his room. I can’t say I blame him. I’m not sure how I would react if I found a stranger inside my bedroom when there’s a magical blood seal protecting it from intruders.

  “Who are you?” he questions warily. “And how did you get in here? I have to invite people into this room before they can set one foot inside, and I don’t even know who you are, lady.”

  I rise from the floor to stand on my feet and face my father. As I stare at him, I realize I have no idea what to tell him about myself, so I decide to skip his first question altogether and answer the second one.

  “I was looking in your room and saw the solar eclipse carved into the surface of your desk,” I say, turning sideways to point to the center of the wooden desk, only to find that there is no such carving present. “Crap, it’s not there yet.”

  “What was so special about the carving?” my dad asks, not sounding surprised in the least by what I just said. It seems almost like it’s something he had already planned to do in the near future.

  I go on to tell him about my hand going through the desk to find the photo and necklace and what happened in my timeline when both my hands touched the picture.

  He doesn’t make fun of me or call me crazy. The adolescent version of my dad simply waits for me to finish before asking, “So you’re my daughter? From the future?”

  I nod because words are escaping me at the moment. And who wouldn’t be flabbergasted meeting a seventeen-year-old version of their father? I feel like Marty McFly from Back to the Future. I just hope I don’t inadvertently do something boneheaded that makes me disappear from the timeline forever.

  “Wow,” he says, running the fingers of one hand through his thick blond hair as he attempts to take in everything I just told him. He looks back at me like he’s trying to study all my features. “You don’t look much like me, so I assume you take after your mother.”

  Again, I just nod and feel the salt of tears begin to burn my eyes as visions of precious moments with my parents begin to bombard my mind. The boy standing in front of me will become the man who one day keeps me from falling after I take my first step. He’ll show me how to ride a bike and trust me enough to go all the wa
y around the block all by myself. He will become a man who holds his daughter’s hand every morning as he walks her to school. All of this is waiting for him in his future, but sadly, they are only fading memories for me.

  “What’s wrong?” my dad asks, looking concerned for my welfare. “Why did the mention of your mother make you start to cry?”

  All I can do is let out a sob as a wellspring of tears begin to blur my vision and make wet trails down my cheeks. He may not know me. He may very well think I’m completely insane. Nevertheless, the young version of my father walks forward and brings me into his arms so I can cry on his shoulder. I wrap my arms around his waist and finally release the floodgate that’s been holding back my grief all these years.

  When my parents died, I cried, screamed that it wasn’t right, and acted out in ways that should have made the Hughes family disown me. Yet, in all that time, I never truly allowed myself to grieve the loss of my parents, so that my heart could heal. Now, being given the gift of seeing my father one last time and having him hold me in his arms again, even if it’s a version of him who has no idea who I am, I feel as though the universe is finally working in my favor, and I know exactly what I have to do to make things right again.

  I pull back and look into his inquisitive eyes.

  “I have to tell you something,” I say, sniffling so I can breathe and talk at the same time. “You and my mom die in my timeline. You die on …”

  My father quickly clamps his right hand over my mouth, cutting off my next words quite effectively.

  “Don’t tell me,” he warns me, shaking his head vigorously. “You should never tell someone their future, especially when they’re going to die. That’s just cruel, and I don’t think I would raise a daughter who’s heartless to others, much less her father.”

  I shake my head, because I don’t understand. I pull his hand away and ask, “But why don’t you want to know? If I tell you, you can stop it from happening!”

  “No,” he tells me remorsefully, “you can’t stop the future. If you try, it always finds a way to course correct and produce the same outcome. Even if you told me the exact time and day that I’m supposed to die, fate would find an alternative path to take to kill me that could be far more painful. Time doesn’t like to be messed with.”

  “Then why would time let me come here at all? I don’t even understand how I got here.”

  “There are spells that will allow people to travel to the past,” he informs me, “but they are strictly forbidden. Anyone caught using a time portal spell is instantly put to death.”

  I gasp in surprise. “Why?”

  “Like I said,” he shrugs, “the past and the future are set. They can’t be altered without dire consequences.”

  “Then why did you leave me something with a time portal spell on it to come back here?” I ask.

  “Because this is something that’s happened in my future self’s past. It’s part of my history, and I need it to happen. Now, tell me about this necklace I left you. Describe it in every detail.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s obviously important for some reason. It could be the reason why time allowed you to come here.”

  “But what if it let me come back so I can save you and mom?” I protest. “You both die …”

  Again, my father silences me, but instead of placing one of his hands over my mouth, he looks into my eyes and quickly says the words “tysta ner.”

  I instantly lose the ability to speak. I’m moving my mouth, but nothing is coming out. I’m sure I look like someone who’s in a silent movie, except there are no captions to tell the viewer what I’m saying.

  “I’m sorry,” he tells me, “but I don’t want to know when or how I die, so please stop trying to tell me. Obviously, I die when you’re young.” He looks me up and down. “What are you? Early twenties?”

  Since I can’t talk, I simply nod my head to confirm his guess.

  “I’m so sorry,” he tells me. “I can’t imagine the pain you’ve had to endure, but I need you to remember what I told you about time course correcting itself. Even if you tell me how and when I die, I will still end up dying in your timeline, and it will most likely be an even more painful death than the one you remember. Do you understand that?”

  I nod, even though I want to argue that if there’s the slimmest chance that I can save him and my mother, we should take it.

  “I can see in your eyes that you’re trying to come up with a way around the rule,” he says, sounding somewhat impressed. “But you can’t. People have tried and failed miserably. More often than not, attempting to save one person’s life leads to the deaths of others. From what you just said, it sounds like your mother and I die at the same time. I can’t take the chance of having you tell me how we die and somehow causing your own death as well. The risk isn’t worth the reward. Do you understand what I’m trying to get across to you?”

  Reluctantly, I nod again.

  “Before I lift my spell from your vocal cords so we can finish talking, I need you to promise me that you won’t try to tell me how or when I die. Do we have a deal?”

  I hesitate. I could lie and say it’s a deal and just blurt out the details anyway. But what if he’s right? What if I just end up making matters worse and cause all three of us to die in the fire? I can’t do that to Julian. He needs me. And what about my mother? Would she end up becoming a shade anyway too? I need to find a way to help her, and I can’t do that if I’m dead.

  Slowly, and with a lot of remorse, I nod my head that I agree to his deal.

  My father snaps his fingers in the air, ending his spell.

  “Do you think you can draw the necklace?” he asks me. “Maybe I’ll recognize it.”

  “Yes,” I tell him.

  He walks over to the desk and pulls out the top drawer to grab a small leather notebook and a pencil. He hands them both to me, and I begin to draw the necklace as well as I can remember.

  As my father studies the picture afterwards, he asks, “And you said the stone was white with opalescent blue streaks in it?”

  “Yes. It kind of resembled an opal, but not quite so colorful.”

  “I know what it is,” he tells me, lifting his gaze to meet mine. “It’s called a moonlight stone. They’re extremely rare and precious here, but we have a few pieces in the crown jewels collection. Although I don’t remember ever seeing this particular necklace among them. This one … is new. I must’ve had it made for you.”

  “Is there anything special about this type of stone?”

  “It can be imbued with a spell,” he tells me, ruminating about the implications of him leaving me such a necklace. “They’re usually protection spells of some sort, but I’m not sure what it is I’m trying to protect you from in the future.”

  “Someone’s trying to kill me in my timeline,” I reveal. “Do you think it has something to do with that?”

  “Is this person magical?” he asks. “Because a moonlight stone only protects you against magic.”

  I shrug helplessly. “I honestly don’t know. That’s what we’re currently trying to figure out. I’ve had a werewolf and a warlock attempt to murder me so far, but they were hired guns, as it were. They were just looking for a payout from the person who employed them to kill me.”

  “Hmm, that doesn’t really help me then,” my dad says. “What else can you tell me about your life that won’t cause a ripple effect?”

  “I’m a vampire companion,” I reveal.

  “Really?” he asks, looking interested. “Then that must mean your mother was a companion too.”

  I nod. “Yes. She would have been.”

  My father lifts his eyebrows at me, silently indicating that I’m getting close to saying too much about their deaths.

  “It’s really weird,” he tells me. “I don’t even like Earth, but from what you’ve just said, I must spend a great deal of time there with you and your mother.”

  “Yes. You do,” I reply, not elab
orating any further.

  My father stares at me for a moment before smiling a sad smile.

  “I wish we had more time together, but it looks like the spell is wearing off,” he says.

  “How can you tell?”

  “You’re beginning to fade,” he replies.

  I look down at myself, and sure enough, my body is slowly becoming transparent.

  I run over to my dad and try to hug him one last time, but my arms simply go straight through his body. Realizing that it’s pointless to show him how much I love him physically, I stand back and say, “I love you, Dad. I never got a chance to say good-bye before you died, and I don’t really want to say it now.”

  “Then don’t say it …Wait! I don’t even know what your name is. What is it?”

  “Sarah,” I tell him, holding back a sob because I know it’s my father who ends up naming me in the future.

  “Sarah,” he repeats with a smile. “I like that name.”

  “Mom will try to change your mind about it, but don’t you dare let her win,” I say. “I like my name too.”

  “It will probably be the only fight I will ever win with her,” my father jokes, “but I will win it for you. Take care of yourself, Sarah. And put the necklace on when you get back home. I’m not sure what it’s meant to protect you from yet, but I wouldn’t have put it there unless I figured it out.”

  “Do you think you would have hidden an explanation about what it’s for somewhere else?” I ask.

  “If it wasn’t with the necklace, I can’t think of anywhere else I would hide it. It could be that I don’t tell you for a reason.”

  I feel the chill of darkness surround me as my surroundings become dimmer, and I’m drawn back to my own time.

  “Dad,” I say, holding out my hand to him, even though I can’t touch him. He does the same as a gesture of unity. “Thank you for giving me a wonderful childhood and showing me how a man who truly loves his family should act. I’ve always measured other men against you and found them wanting, but I think I’ve finally found someone who can love me as much as you did.”