by Sean Stone
Chapter 29
Nobody spoke. Nobody moved. All eyes were on the dagger which lay in the pile of ashes that had formerly been Nickolas Blackwood. James listened to his own pulse ringing in his ears. He drew in a deep breath that rattled on its way down. Every instinct now told him to run. The time for fighting was over. If Nick couldn’t beat Apophis then none of them could. Apophis had killed the man who could not die. He had done the impossible. Fighting was not an option. Fighting was stupidity.
Apophis turned to face them all. “Who would like to go next?” he asked softly, as if he was afraid to break the silence.
James did not give any of them to chance to act stupidly. He grabbed Clara and Arthur by their arms and transported them safely back to their house.
“You fucking idiots!” James shouted before the Winters living room had even fully materialised around them.
Arthur and Clara looked around in confusion. “Why did you…” Arthur started.
“Fucking, fucking idiots!” James shouted again. “Why? Why would you go there without a plan? A proper plan not your idiotic idea of a plan. Idiots. Idiots. Idiots.”
“You need to calm down,” Arthur said, his voice was quiet but there was a deadly quality to it. The other Coven members started to enter the room, their eyes wide with bewilderment.
“Do I? Do I need to calm down? Did you see what I just saw you fucking idiot? Did you? Because what I just saw was you leading us in to that house absent of any logical plan and then a jinni with more power than I ever thought anyone could hold ripped us all apart before killing the one person on earth who I thought could not be killed. But I need to calm down,” James ranted.
“You’re upset because Nick’s dead,” Arthur said.
“I don’t give a fuck about Nick!” James snapped. “I’m upset because I nearly died. And what were you thinking attacking Apophis?”
“What were we supposed to do, wait for him kill us?” Clara demanded hotly.
“Where is Olivia?” Arthur asked, looking around. James had expected her to follow them back.
“She must have stayed to fight,” said Clara, her eyes wide in realisation.
“James you have to go back for her?” Arthur said.
“Go back for her? You really are a moron,” James said in wonder. “I’m going home to pack my shit up, then I’m leaving this town whether Dean wants to come or not.”
“So you’re taking the coward’s way out,” said Arthur with contempt.
“Better a coward than dead hero,” James said and teleported from the house.
He reappeared in his own bedroom where he pulled his suitcase from the top of the wardrobe and began filling it with his possessions. He made no effort to be quiet and Kristen soon emerged from wherever she’d been in the house.
“What are you doing?” she asked, standing with arms crossed in the doorway.
“Leaving. You were right. This isn’t our fight,” he said without turning to face her.
“What about Dean?”
“I’ll ask him to come but if he refuses…” He didn’t yet know what would happen then. Part of him wanted to force him to come, but the other part knew that doing that would ruin their relationship. “Well, it’s his choice I guess. I’m leaving either way.”
“What’s happened?” she asked, concerned.
James shook his head. If he started talking about it then he’d let the fear take him and he was only just keeping it together.
“James. Tell me what happened?” Kristen said more forcefully. She grabbed his shoulders and turned him to face her. He’d forgotten how strong she was. She was a petite woman, but he knew in a fist-fight she could handle more than twice her size. James hadn’t learned how to increase his strength with magic yet. It was one of the trickier spells.
“I can’t talk about it,” he insisted.
“Well I’m not letting you go until you’ve told me,” she said.
He shook his head again. “Apophis. He was too strong. Too strong for all of us.”
“What a surprise,” she said sarcastically. She took her hands from his shoulders and turned away. “Who died? Arthur or Clara? I hope it was Clara.”
James didn’t even take in how callous she was being. “Nick,” he said simply.
Kristen stopped moving. Her posture turned rigid and when she turned to face James there was cold fury in her eyes. “What?” she hissed. “That isn’t possible.”
“That’s what I thought,” said James.
“He’s immortal.”
James shook his head. “He’s dead. Apophis said…. Oh it doesn’t matter what he said. Nick’s dead. He turned to ash. He’s gone.”
“No he isn’t!” Kristen screamed and the wardrobe burst into flames.
James made no move to extinguish the flames. It didn’t matter. “I’m sorry, Kris,” he said, though he didn’t feel sorry. He felt oddly hollow as if his fear had stopped all other emotions and sent them somewhere far away.
James turned away and resumed filling his suitcase. He wasn’t sure where exactly he’d go. As far away from Apophis as possible. Australia was a good distance. Maybe someone would put an end to the evil jinni before he reached Australia.
“Stop packing,” Kristen said. She was staring at James with dead eyes. “I said stop packing!” she shouted and he obeyed. “We are going nowhere until this matter is resolved.”
“What are you saying?” he demanded.
“I’m saying I’m going to find out if Nick really is dead and if he is…” she looked around at nothing in particular and then her eyes settled on James again. The look she gave him was chilling. “I’m going to kill Apophis. So forget about running away like a rat. We have work to do.”
“Your friends have abandoned you,” Apophis said to Olivia. They stood facing each other, the ashes of her lover on the floor beside them. “Aren’t you going to follow them?”
“I came here to kill you and I’m not leaving until it’s done,” she told him coldly.
“Then I’m afraid you’re not leaving,” he replied. He snatched at her but she disappeared at the last second. He felt her attack in his centre of his back but it was barely enough to make him shudder. “We’ve been through this,” said Apophis boredly. He turned to face her. “He couldn’t do it so you won’t be able to either.”
“I will die trying,” Olivia said, her voice cracking. “I loved him.”
“You did. A long time ago,” Apophis said, once again tapping into her mind, reading her thoughts and feelings. The more emotional a person got the easier it was to break through their defences. “Just as he loved you. A long time ago.”
“Shut up,” she spat.
“I’ve seen inside both of your minds. I know that your love for each other died when you returned from the dead. You were both in love with your ideas of each other. But those ideas are six-hundred years out of date,” Apophis said. “You know that what I say is true. As true as the fact that you cannot kill me. Do not die for a love that doesn’t truly exist.”
“He’s right, Olivia. Don’t waste your life on the likes of Apophis,” Kayla said as she emerged from the same room Apophis had. She was no longer stone. Her face was pale and her eyes a beautiful light blue. Her blonde hair hung down, curling lightly below her shoulders.
Apophis’ tongue flicked from his mouth to moisten his cracked lips with fiery saliva. “The hybrid Kayla. Returned to us at last. Do you know how the curse was broken?”
“He killed Nickolas,” Olivia said in despair.
“I wanted her to guess,” Apophis said, annoyed.
Kayla’s eyes flicked to the ashes. There was a momentary sadness which she quickly buried before returning her eyes to Apophis. “Olivia I want you to go home. Return to the house Nickolas lived in and wait for me there. I’ll follow shortly,” she said kindly, but firmly.
“I’m not leaving until he’s dead,” she argued.
“You are not going to be able to kill him today. Neither of
us can. So go home and wait for me. He’ll still be here to kill tomorrow,” she said more forcefully and the girl begrudgingly left.
“How does it feel to know I killed your son?” Apophis asked antagonistically. He would’ve loved to have been able to read her mind, but that power did not work on ancients.
“I’m not going to break the curse,” Kayla said, ignoring the question. She turned away from Apophis as though she wasn’t afraid of him and began looking around the room.
“Good. Nobody wants that.”
“What?” she said, head snapping back to him.
“Have I got your attention?” he said, pleased.
“Why wouldn’t you want your race freed from their prisons?” she asked.
“My subjects could be… disobedient at times. There were times when I would need to remind them who was in charge. Who was king. The majority of them never wanted me as their ruler you see. But now, thanks to your marvellous curse, all I need do is possess the bottles that trap them and they will have no choice but to follow my every order. You’ve made my job so much easier.”
Kayla stopped moving, mouth open in shock and disgust. “You would keep your own race enslaved?” she said in disbelief.
“To me. Yes.”
“Then what do you want from me?”
“A fine question. My chieftains. I know that you know who they really are. I know that you know how powerful they really are. So, I know that you would never have allowed them to be scattered across the earth like you did the other jinn. But, you would also never have left them anywhere near me in case I ever got free. You’ve put them somewhere safe. Tell me where and I will spare you,” he said pleasantly.
“Spare me from what?” she asked.
“An agonising death,” he replied. For death was coming to her. She was a hybrid abomination and he would not suffer her to live a day longer than she needed to.
“I actually didn’t know how powerful your chieftains really were. I suspected it, but I didn’t know it. Thank you for confirming it,” she said and then vanished.
Contempt raged through Apophis. These teleporting fools were the bane of everything. It was one of two things he had never been able to achieve, that and the ability to turn to smoke. The two hallmarks of his race, denied to him for eternity. The two weaknesses that would constantly remind him of what he’d been before. He was the most powerful of his kind and yet the fates continued to mock him. He took a deep breath to calm himself. It didn’t matter. He didn’t need to teleport. He didn’t need to turn to smoke. He knew where Kayla was going. She’d said so to the Blackwood girl. Apophis would make sure she stayed here, in Cedarstone. And here she would stay until she told him what he wanted to know. She had always been a humanitarian. A greater lover of the lesser races. Well, she could stay here and watch everyone die until she was willing to reveal her secrets. He would have his chieftains one way or another.
He looked down at the Ambrotos Dagger that lay among the ashes of the one who had come closer to killing him than anyone had since his ascension into a greater jinni. He wondered if the dagger did possess the power to kill him. No. It was impossible. Nothing could kill him whilst his protections were in place. He turned away from the dagger and left the house, his mind already moving onto the next stage of his plan.
Teleporting right into Montford Manor was a foolish move, but luckily Apophis was not there. Kristen did not usually care about being reckless, after all she was immortal, but if what James had said was true then she had something to fear. The house was a horrible shamble. A dusty relic of something that used to be grand. The perfect place for a has-been king of a has-been race, she mused. She walked around, looking at the rotten furniture and the dust-covered items. None of them was what she was looking for, but they provided the perfect procrastination. They kept her from what she had come to see. The very thing that she did not want to see. She passed into the next room and knew she was in the right room. The walls were cracked and some parts had caved in completely. The ceiling was gone as was the roof far above the next room up. The first rays of the morning sun shone done on the chaotic room. Blood was scattered around the room. In the middle of the room was the body of a dark-skinned woman and some way away from that the withered remains of a vampire. Then she saw it. The Ambrotos Dagger. It wasn’t the same. It had lost its shine. The gold was dull and lifeless. The glow of power had fled. Scattered all around it were ashes, grey like stone and just as empty.
She took a step forward, wobbled and fell to her knees as if an anchor was dragging her down. The floor was hard, but she barely felt it. She had to take several deep breaths to steady herself. It wasn’t true, she told herself. But she knew that it was. Even before she touched the tips of her fingers to the ashes and felt the familiar sense of her former master. He hadn’t really been a master. Sure, she’d sworn loyalty and obedience, but he had very rarely ordered her about. He made requests of her and she had always been happy to oblige. He hadn’t been her master. He hadn’t been her sire. He’d been her friend. Her oldest and closest friend. He’d known every aspect of her personality and unlike so many other men she’d encountered, not once had he ever attempted to use it against her. He’d never tried to sneak into her head or manipulate her. He’d always been honest and open. He’d trusted her, respected her and loved her and she had done all the same for him. He meant more to her than anybody, even James. And now he was gone. She’d accepted that their lives might lead them in different directions, that their bond might diminish over time, that centuries could pass without them seeing each other, and though it troubled her, she was fine with it. But to think of him as gone from the world for eternity… Well she wasn’t fine with that.
She raised a hand to wipe the tear from her cheek and then got to work. With a weak flourish she conjured an urn. It was jet black, shining in the moonlight which shone in from the gaping hole in the house above. Using her finger like a pencil she drew out the shape of a dagger, engraving the image in gold on the front of the urn. Every detail was perfect, an exact copy of the Ambrotos Dagger. Beneath the dagger she drew his name in beautiful swirling letters, Nickolas Blackwood. She set the urn down on the floor beside the ashes and waited. He was supposed to be immortal. Truly immortal. He was supposed to be able to come back from anything. She’d seen him blown to tiny chunks of mangled flesh and then the pieces of his body had crawled across the floor and rebuilt him anew. So why weren’t his ashes doing the same? Why wasn’t he rebuilding himself?
“Why?” she screamed in a high banshee-like tone at the ashes. They gave only silence.
She flicked her finger at the ashes and they rose from the floor and poured into the urn like a waterfall of death. She watched it fill slowly. She could have gone faster, perhaps should have gone faster, but it seemed more respectful to go slow and Nick deserved her respect. When all the ashes were in the urn they filled it three quarters full. There was still room for one more thing. She lifted the dagger delicately. She had only touched it three times in the past and never for long. She would never forget the weight of it, not just because it was solid gold, but the weight of the power it contained. Kristen had never felt such power anywhere. But she couldn’t feel it now. She’d expected to just feel cold metal, but there was something there. A slither of power. Just a hint. A shadow of what it used to be. An echo of Nick. Point down she lowered the dagger into the urn where it was consumed by the ashes. Only the top of the handle remained visible.
“Goodbye, my friend,” she whispered before placing the lid on the urn. “You will be avenged,” she added and then teleported from the house.
“Thank God,” James said, exhaling loudly when she returned.
“If you were so concerned for my safety then you should have accompanied me,” she muttered. Nick would never have been too afraid. “Come here,” she instructed, holding out her hand as she placed the urn down on the table by the door.
“Why?” he asked suspiciously. He came nonetheless and she grabb
ed hold of his hand.
“You told me that Olivia tapped into the connection we shared with the Thirteen?”
“Yes, but I thought the connection broke when we all died,” James said in confusion.
“Evidently not,” she remarked sourly. She saw the hurt on his face and her coldness melted away. He was all she had now. Nick was gone, Jamal was gone, she’d never been that close to the others. James was the one person left in her life and she couldn’t hold this against him. It wasn’t his fault he was afraid. Up until now she’d been afraid that he might wind up dead. She’d have been so happy if it hadn’t taken Nick’s death to change his perspective. No, she wouldn’t hold it against him. “I’m glad you survived,” she said quietly.
He gave her a weak and nervous smile. “What are we doing?”
“Calling for back-up,” she replied. She pushed into him whilst searching within herself at the same time. Sure enough the connection was still there. Very faint. Like a radio signal buried beneath static. She grabbed hold of it and pushed her magic into the connection. It was like somebody had whacked up the volume. Suddenly she could feel the strands all over the world. She called out to them. Sent out a distress signal. She summoned them.
“What did you—” James started, but was interrupted by a small pop across the room.
Kristen looked over and saw Julian standing before her. His whitish hair was slicked back across his head and his big eyes looked bored. One eyebrow lifted on his saggy face. “Kristen. James. Why have you called me and how?” he said in his monotonous drawl.
Before they could answer there was another pop and Lucian stood before them. Tall and gaunt, his bond hair cut short and his vampiric red eyes glowing. Several more pops indicated the arrivals of Peter, Cole, Wyatt and Alanis. When no further pops sounded Kristen assumed they were all that were coming. One had declined the summons. The rest were dead.
