The Sage nodded and lowered his voice lowered until it was barely audible. “I thank the Elementals that you were able to discover the meeting Alexander. If not, I truly believe it may have been the end of the Warren.” He bowed his head. “I am truly sorry for my failure. I should have known.”
I looked around at the room. Everyone seemed beyond uncomfortable at seeing our leader so upset. I tried to think of something to say, but couldn’t find the right words. Rachel found them instead.
“Don’t blame yourself Sage Faru. We all trusted the wrong people. Dakin was my friend. I can’t believe he was part of something like this.” She gestured towards Echo. “Scarlett and Tyler worked with him every day and had no idea. We all feel hurt, but there’s no point in going over why he did it. Tomorrow night, this base is going to come under attack. We need to protect Alexander and everyone else from what waits beyond the Veil.”
Her words were met with sounds of approval. Faru raised his head. “Rachel is right. We must not allow personal emotions to cloud the facts.” His tone shifted. “We need to prepare ourselves for battle. I shall speak with the other Sages and request additional support. Tyler, on my orders I want you to take a group of Chosen and place Sylvia under arrest. Put her in the prisons.” He took a deep breath. “I am disbanding Echo. When tomorrow comes, you fight with Orion. If Dakin does return for any reason — which I doubt he will — no one is to speak a word of this. Are we clear?”
Tyler nodded, saluted and left the room. Faru turned to face the redhead.“Scarlett, I want you to take Alexander’s brother as far north as you can, to one of the Outposts. Tell no one here which one you choose. And stay there with him until the battle is over.”
Scarlett reacted as if his words were blows. “What? No way!” she shouted. “My teammate betrayed me, I want to be part of this fight too. I can drop Mikey somewhere safe and come back.”
Faru stared at her with his white eyes, which seemed to be shimmering with a newfound intensity. “You will do as I command Scarlett. I understand your passion and we all truly appreciate your commitment to the Alliance. However, if tomorrow’s assault does not go to plan for the SOS, they may attempt to use Alexander’s brother as insurance. We cannot bring him here, because that would only endanger him further. We must get him as far away from Chapter Hill as possible. And I need someone I can still trust to keep him protected.”
I nodded an agreement. “He’ll need you to protect him Scarlett. And besides, if anyone was going to protect him, I’d want it to be you.” The Bloodling folded her slender arms across her chest and clenched her jaw. “You want him to be safe don’t you?” I added. Her shoulders slumped. “Of course I do. Okay, I’ll do it.” “Thank you Scarlett, you’re commitment has not gone unnoticed,” said Faru. “Alex should go too.”
I spun around to face Gabriella, who purposefully avoided my gaze. She cleared her throat. “The SOS are coming here to free The Sorrow. The Sorrow wants Alex. It’s better if he isn’t here in case…you know, they succeed.”
Scarlett nodded. “She’s right. He’ll stand a better chance, the further away he is.”
Faru looked pensive. “Perhaps it is better if you were not here Alexander.”
“Are you kidding me?” I almost shouted. “Not a bloody chance. I’m not going to let everyone around here die for me, while I’m hiding hundreds of miles away.” I tried to calm myself down. “Besides, The Sorrow found me. Running is only delaying the inevitable and puts people I care about at risk.” I shook my head. “When I took the oath of a Guardian, I swore to stand by you all, even if that meant dying. So when the SOS attack tomorrow, I’m going to be standing right there next to you.”
I stared at each person in the room. Most of them looked impressed, which hadn’t been my intention. I didn’t want to impress. I wanted them to understand how I felt. I’d spent so long feeling powerless and afraid. I wasn’t afraid anymore. I had friends and people to care for and protect. I had a cause to fight for. One I believed in. I looked at Gabriella, who returned the gaze. Our eyes stayed locked together like they had the first day at school.
She smiled.
Faru stood up straight. “Thank you Alexander. Your selfless courage epitomises what it means to be a Guardian and a Chosen. You do your forbearers proud.” He gestured towards us all. “I shall sound the sirens to gather everyone together so that we can begin to prepare for tomorrow.”
As he said the words, a sudden thought clicked into my head. My stomach burst with adrenaline. “Sage Faru, is there a way to prevent the sound of a Siren affecting non-Chosen?”
Faru raised his woollen eyebrows. “A simple Witch’s spell could easily do so, yes.”
I clapped my hands together. “Okay, we’re going to need loads of speaker wire. I think I’ve got an idea.”
The clouds were the colour of burned flesh. Loud growls of thunder boomed in the distance. Streaks of lightning ignited the sky and crashed down to the ground in jagged forks on the horizon. The rain fell in thick sheets, belting against the glass.
I turned away from the window and headed back to the fireplace. Gabriella was sitting on the sofa, dressed in a sleeveless top and jeans, her bare feet curled underneath her body. Her hair spilled over the back cushions. She ran her fingers absently along the exposed flesh of one of her arms.
It was a few hours after our meeting with Faru. Sylvia had never managed to make it to the prison — a connected policeman had found her in a dumpster not far from where the meeting had taken place. Her throat had been slit.
Mikey was safe, hidden away somewhere several hundred miles north. The thought my family so far away from the danger made me feel better. It no longer shocked me at how much I cared about them — even that idiot John…a bit.
Faru had assembled a meeting in the Feasting Hall. The room had been full to the point of bursting. There’d been waves of shock and anger as he delivered the news, followed by a resigned acceptance. Afterwards we had all gone to our apartments to eat and get some sleep so that we could rise early in the morning and begin to prepare. I’d sat in silence for a long time on my couch, before knocking on Gabriella’s door.
I sat down next to her on the sofa, warming a hand by the fire.
“I don’t know if I’m ready for this,” I said staring into the flames. “I thought I was. But then it occurred to me…I’m going to have to actually kill people tomorrow aren’t I?”
Gabriella lifted her back off the cushions. “You already have killed Alex. Rahuman remember?”
“I know. But I did it without thinking…you know. Like survival instinct. But at the bar, my instincts told me to go straight for the swords, but I fought them and decided on the safer option instead. It almost cost me. Tomorrow, I know that it’s kill or be killed. I’m just…I don’t know if I can.”
“Alex, I know that it’s hard. Killing anyone is not a decision any of us take lightly. But the Soldiers of Sorrow are the worst kind of evil. They are coming here with the sole purpose of killing as many of us as they can and serving you to The Sorrow on a platter. You need to understand, you’re a Chosen Alex — a walking weapon. It’s inside you. You have to stop fighting it and let it take over.”
I turned around to face her. “That’s what I’m frightened of.” I pressed a hand against my stomach. “What’s inside scares the living hell out of me. You saw what I did to TJ. I couldn’t stop myself. Midnight told me about the darkness he felt inside. I–I think I have it too.”
Gabriella paused for a second. “Alex, I already told you. When you hurt TJ, you were drunk and going through your Awakening. You weren’t yourself. Look, I don’t know how you feel inside. All I know is what I see. And what I see is a kind, strong, caring person who is willing to put his life on the line for what he believes in. We all have a darker side,” she placed a hand on my arm, “but we all have good too.”
I felt myself relax. I leaned back into the sofa and let out a deep whoosh of breath. “You’re right…as always,” I sa
id, rolling my eyes. “Hey” she laughed and swatted my arm. “As morbid as it sounds, this could be our last night alive,” I said staring at the pictures on the mantelpiece. “So what shall we do?” Gabriella asked from behind me. I turned around and stared right at her. “I want you to tell me about your parents. Everything.”
Gabriella’s face drew tight and she squirmed as if I’d asked her to imagine her deepest phobia. She looked away in some subconscious attempt to avoid the question. I leaned over and gently pulled her around to face me. I stared into her eyes.
“Ella, I know that something bad must have happened. But you can’t keep it inside forever. I think it’s time you told someone.”
I could see the anguish in her face. It seemed like she were caught in an internal struggle. Something seemed to give. She let out a long sigh.
“Okay.”
29
Baptised in Blood
Most of what I know I’ve had to piece together from diaries my Papa kept and what Sage Etorre told me.
Papa’s name was Antonio De Luca. He was born in a small village about thirty kilometres south of Roma. It was the sort of place where everybody knew everybody else.
His family wasn’t rich — my grandfather was a tailor by trade. He had two sisters, Milena and Angelica. The family were devout Catholics. Before he could even walk, my father attended Mass. Antonio idolised my grandfather — his early diaries were full of extracts about him. He helped out at the tailors, working hard to make life easier for his father. He even expressed a desire to continue the family business, which he wrote made grandfather really proud. It was a humble life I guess, but Papa seemed happy. That was until he turned eighteen and had his Awakening.
His diaries don’t explain what could have caused it. All I know is how scared Papa was when he discovered he had all these extraordinary abilities. Back then, the HASEA wasn’t so organised. They didn’t approach him for some time. Not knowing what to do, he went to my grandfather for advice. It didn’t go well. My grandfather thought he was possessed by a demon. He carted him off to see the local priest who apparently performed all manner of frightening exorcisms on him. When it didn’t work — which naturally it wouldn’t as he was about as far from possessed as you can get — the priest proclaimed him to be the spawn of Satan. The whole family was shamed. In turn, Papa’s own family shunned him. He was told to leave with little more than the clothes on his back and some parting money from my weeping grandmother.
Being deeply religious himself, Papa believed what the priest had said. He was convinced that he was evil. That it was only a matter of time before he seriously hurt someone…or worse. So he headed to the nearest bar with the intention of drinking himself into oblivion. He was sat in the corner, drowning his sorrows when my mother walked in.
Mamma’s name was Lorena. As I told you before, she was a Succubus. She’d come to the bar looking for men she could drain. But I need to explain something. Succubi aren’t like Incubi. They don’t exist just to breed. They drain life-force not just to stay young and beautiful — that’s a by-product. If they don’t. they decay and eventually die. If they want to live, they don’t have a choice. But some are lazy and can’t be bothered to spend more than one night feeding. They drain a single person until they are dead to get what they need. Those are the ones we have a problem with. Others ‘hop’ — taking the bare minimum from each person. Sex is the trade-off. All the victim remembers is a great one night stand and a few days of flu afterwards. Not a bad deal really. Anyway, Lorena was the latter, not evil, just doing what she needed to in order to survive.
So she came into the bar and was working on several of the men. Succubi have a few talents, one of which is the ability to sort of drink in the surface information of their victims. Then they use it to help them relate to the person. That’s what Iralia did to you the day you first came to the base. Not that they really need the skill, because another is that they can charm others into falling in love with them. Naturally this helps when they want the person to…um, go home with them.
So anyway, Lorena noticed Papa sitting away from the others and how much more powerful his life-force was. So she headed over to try her charms on him. Naturally they didn’t work. Antonio was unknowingly immune to her allure. Mamma had never before met a Chosen and was confused and intrigued by him. She wanted to know more, but couldn’t use the short cut, so decided to try the old fashioned way. But, Papa refused to open up. He just sat there and drank, staring into his glass, whilst Mamma talked to him. At the end of the evening, he was very drunk. Lorena offered to take him home. He admitted he had no home to be taken to. Maybe it was the curiosity, or maybe she was starting to feel something, Mamma did something she’d never done before. She invited him to stay at her place. Apparently he made weak efforts to refuse, but she insisted. He took the sofa, and turned down her advances. In the morning, when she came down, he’d gone. That evening, she found him in the same bar once again drowning his sorrows. And once again, she sat with him and talked while he drank and for the second time offered him a place to stay. As before, in the morning, when she came downstairs, there was no sign of him. The pattern continued for at least a week. Every evening, he’d head back to the bar and start drinking. After my mother finished her shift at a local restaurant, she’d join Papa and sit with him, whilst he drank. She told him little things about herself. All the truth, only leaving out the parts that were Succubus related. Little by little, he began to open up. He told about his family, about his past. Told her about what he thought was the evil inside of him. Told her the things he could do. He demonstrated by melting his glass with a hand. It was at this point that Mamma realised what Papa was. She knew she should fear him, but instead she felt something else. And he felt the same thing when he looked at her. No tricks or allure. They were falling for each other.
I found a passage at the back of one of Papas’ diaries, which were words she’d said one of those nights. She told him: ‘No one is evil by default. Everyone has choices. The choices you make are what define you. You can be whoever you want to be, whoever you are.’
That night, Papa didn’t sleep on the couch. That evening when she came to the bar after her shift, he was sober. He never said it, but it was obvious that he had found something to live for.
It had been two weeks since Lorena had fed. She refused to allow herself to feed on Antonio. Aside from the fact that he would remember, she cared for him too much. Succubi need to feed on average at least once a week, or they start to degenerate. But something strange was happening to Mamma. Her looks weren’t declining. If anything, she was becoming even more beautiful. She didn’t know what it meant, but she didn’t care — she was happy.
After a while, Papa moved in with Mamma. He got himself a job at the same bar he’d visited so many times. It was another month before the HASEA came to him. They caught up with him as he was walking home and told him what he really was. He had to believe them, they knew too much about what he was going through to be lying. He went with them to Castello, where they filled in the blanks.
They also told him what Lorena was.
As soon as they did, he ran from the base and went straight home. He confronted Mamma about it, demanding the truth. She broke down and told him. He was horrified and left her sobbing her heart out. I know this makes him seem like a horrible person Alex, but he was just really scared. Don’t forget how he was raised. It was almost impossible for him not to apply religion to what he’d learned. But religion has so much wrong. It refers to most Umbra species as demons. And demons within that context are completely evil. And Succubi are supposedly demons. So he believed my mother was evil and had been sent by the Devil to help corrupt his soul.
He was followed by the Alliance and brought back in. Over the next few days, without my father around, my mother began to decay rapidly. At first she thought that it was because she’d subconsciously been draining him without either of them realising. But when she drained a random person and it ma
de no difference, it was like she was dying of sadness.
Papa was hurting too and despite his beliefs, he snuck over to Mamma’s house and peered in through the window. Apparently she was slumped against the lounge wall, looking at least sixty years old. Instead of being repulsed, he panicked. Broke the door down and went to her. Told her that he didn’t care what she was. That someone had told him that no one is evil by default. Within hours she began to heal. By the morning she was back to the beautiful woman he knew and loved. He vowed that he’d never leave her again and she forgave him, because she knew both figuratively and literally that she couldn’t live without him.
They joined the HASEA together and were honest about their relationship. There were no laws forbidding relationships between Pandemonians and Chosen, but it was frowned upon back then. But they were in love and didn’t care either way. The longer they spent together, the more human my mother became. She didn’t need to feed any more. Somehow Papa kept her healthy. So when she started being sick in the mornings, they both knew it was for another reason entirely.
A union between an Umbra and a Chosen was bad enough, but neither of my parents knew what the consequences of a resulting child would be. You already know that witches and shaman are the result of Pandemonians breeding with humans, but it was believed that a Chosen and Pandemonian couldn’t produce a child. In the history of the Alliance, not a single case was reported where it had happened — I guess it essentially goes against nature. I know this sounds really cheesy, but I was a miracle. Because my parents simply didn’t know what would happen to me if the HASEA found out, they kept me hidden away for fear of me being taken away. Don’t get me wrong; even though I was a ‘secret’, I was loved unconditionally. I had an amazing life and was spoiled by both Mamma and Papa.
Then it all went wrong.
I was seven years old when the SOS found out about my parent’s relationship. The information made it all the way back to Hades. He was furious and took what he saw as one of his own joining with a Chosen as a personal insult against himself and the Umbra. So he gave the Sorrow its first mission on this side of the Veil. Kill my parents.
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