by Lizzy Ford
This is bad. Really bad.
But what exactly is this?
Chapter Eight
We return to the office building where the council met. This time, however, I’m led to what appears to be a courtroom of sorts on the ground floor. Three familiar faces, belonging to council members, sit where the judge would in a human courtroom. Unlike a normal court, there are no lawyers and no witnesses.
I’m escorted before the three judges and released by Michel and Antony.
“Charges?” one of the council members asks, glancing at Michel.
“One count of homicide by feeding,” Michel replies.
“But –” I start to object.
“We’ll make that primary,” the woman interrupts. “The forty three thousand, two hundred and seventy seven other homicides are secondary.”
“The what?” I almost shout.
She looks up from the paperwork in front of her and glares at me. “The amount of vampire lives lost in the past thousand years, after the Kingmakers punished us for opposing the curse.”
My mouth is hanging open. Myca said half his people were wiped out, but the number is beyond my ability to comprehend.
The three judges talk quietly among themselves, then address Michel. I’m too confused and shocked to catch anything and finally manage to pull my numbed mind out of my thoughts.
“Your Honor or … whatever you’re called,” I interrupt their discussion and step forward. “I didn’t kill all those people!”
All five of them stare at me like I’m crazy.
“Hel-lo. I’m twenty three!” I exclaim. “I didn’t kill forty three thousand and however many vampires a thousand years ago!”
The woman running things leans over the wooden podium separating us and looks at my feet. “That,” she says, pointing, “tells me you did.”
I glance down at my dual shadows, barely visible in the courtroom’s lighting.
“We can’t charge you for their deaths as a primary crime. But according to vampire law, we can hold you accountable for complicity in a secondary crime for atrocities committed by your ancestors. How convenient that you would be a vampire when you chose to kill a human.”
What the fuck?
It’s a set up. Someone is framing me for Barry’s murder so the council can punish me for the deaths of their people. I miss my chance to object when she pauses and instead, can only stare at her, once more caught in the mindset of wondering if this is real or not.
“The Kingmaker curse has tormented us long enough,” the man beside her seconds.
“We can’t oppose it, but perhaps, in this way, we can eliminate it,” the other man agrees. “We’ll put you to earth as punishment, Miss Kingmaker.”
To earth?
Michel grabs my arm and starts to lead me away.
“Wait, wait!” I cry and pull free. “This makes no sense! I didn’t kill the human in my house, and I didn’t kill those people a thousand years ago. How can you charge me without evidence? Without a lawyer or … where the fuck is Myca? Does he know you’re doing this?”
“You are a vampire, which makes you accountable to the vampire council,” the woman replies. “Have you no shame, Miss Kingmaker? No remorse for the lives your clan has cost us the past two thousand years? Those we lost are but a fraction of the total amount of lives that have been destroyed within the Community by the Kingmakers!”
This shuts me up. I’ve been afraid to know the extent of damage my family has done to the Community.
“Everyone here lost a loved one during the purge a thousand years ago,” she adds in a hushed tone. “Your ancestor committed those atrocities in the name of the curse you forced upon the Community!”
The silence is dangerous, and I don’t need my instinct’s soft warning to tell me to tread carefully.
“I’m sorry you lost someone,” I start slowly, mind racing. “I don’t understand the curse. I don’t know what my ancestors did to yours, and I don’t know how to make it right, or I would.”
No one speaks.
“I can promise you – I had nothing to do with the human’s … with Barry’s death. If you want to give me some sort of insight into what happened a thousand years ago, or two thousand, maybe I can help,” I add. My heart is thumping loud and hard in my ears, and I’m acutely aware of being surrounded by five vampires who, right now, want me dead.
“How can you not know of the curse whose name you bear?” one of the men asks finally.
“My father never told me,” I replied. “I learned about it two and a half weeks ago.”
They’re angry – but listening, and I sense disbelief from at least one of the two councilmen. The woman, however, isn’t buying it.
“You’ve been corrupted by your power,” she claims.
“What power?” I ask, perplexed. “Choosing the next leader?”
One of them gives a frustrated sigh. “You cannot use ignorance as a defense!” he snaps and throws his pen. “You’re too old not to know what you are!”
I’m on thin ice – and I have no idea what to do, but I’m intrigued by the information they’re sharing.
“Michel.” The councilwoman motions to me.
Michel moves to stand in front of me. I look up at him. He takes one of my wrists and bites me. Hard.
I wrench away with a curse.
Tilting his head, he seems to savor the flavor before facing the council. “She’s telling the truth,” he reports. “She possesses no memories that indicate she’s been made aware of the curse or what she is.”
“No shit,” I mutter and watch my wrist heal.
The three council members exchange looks.
“I don’t know what I am. I don’t know what the curse is. I don’t have any fucking clue how my ancestor slaughtered your people or why the fuck I’m bad news everywhere I go,” I tell them. “If you want to enlighten me, I’m all ears!”
Another thick silence.
“She doesn’t know, Councilwoman Harriet,” Michel says softly. “You cannot charge her for a secondary crime if she’s unaware of it. According to our laws, she must be made aware of the nature of the charges.”
Thank god. A voice of reason.
“No one knows of the curse’s true origin or nature or even the terms under which it was made,” the woman snaps and leans back. “Your Kingmaker ancestor’s first act was to murder, in cold blood, every Community member who agreed to the sick pact granting your clan unprecedented power and influence.”
Unprecedented what? Are they talking to me or someone else? I open my mouth to ask, when one of the men speaks.
“Do you not recognize the extra shadow? Can you be so ignorant as not to know what it is?” he asks.
I glance down. “It looks like a shadow to me,” I reply.
“They’ve lost all memory of what they were,” he says to the woman.
“How can this be?” She’s frowning.
“Selective recording of their history?” the other man suggests. “General denial?”
“In her father perhaps, but how can any clan member reach maturity without knowing what they are?” the woman counters.
I’m starting to panic. I’ve wanted to know why I’m so different since I was a child. Now that three angry vampires are about to tell me, I’m terrified to learn the truth.
“What am I?” My voice is a whisper, and my mouth is dry. “Aside from a shape shifter?”
“You, Miss Kingmaker,” says the councilwoman, “are a fallen angel, like every Kingmaker since the curse was born. The shadow is a reminder of what you all were, of how you traded your wings and souls, and betrayed your clan and Community, in exchange for absolute power. There is always a price for obtaining such a thing. You brought extinction upon your original clan and the curse upon every clan in the Community. The story of what exactly happened is lost, but what you are is remembered by us, even if your kind has chosen to forget what you are and were.”
Fallen angel … But I thought they wer
e called … Oh, god. Am I a demon?
It suddenly makes sense why everyone hates my family.
“Does that satisfy the requirements under vampire law?” the woman asks Michel.
“Yes, ma’am,” he replies. “I will carry out the sentence immediately.”
“No. Antony will.”
I sense Michel stiffen, as if he’s not happy about this, but my mind is somewhere else completely.
Am I a demon? I feel like I’m screaming the words aloud, but no one seems to notice. My ears are buzzing so loudly, I can’t hear any more of their exchange. Tunnel vision forms, but I fight it.
Antony grabs my arm, and I wrench free.
“I demand to speak to Myca!” I cry.
“Take her!” the councilwoman commands.
Antony tries again, and I fight him, too panicked to notice the baton in his hand. It smashes the back of my head, and I fall into darkness.
Chapter Nine
Some time later, I jerk awake and smack my head into the ceiling when I go to sit up.
Blinking, I try to right my senses.
Why is the ceiling so low? Why is it so dark? Why am I lying down?
It takes me a minute to fully awaken, and then, I wish I’d stayed asleep.
The wooden ceiling is inches above my body. I’m on my back, in a box or …
Holy fuck. Is this a coffin?
Panic explodes inside me, and I smash my hands against it, try to kick upward, scream … I completely lose it until I’m breathless and panting with tears on my face. My hands smell of blood, and I can make out the rich scent of freshly turned dirt.
And then I realize I’m not alone. Someone else is here; I can feel the pressure of someone’s shoulder against mine.
“It’s okay,” he says.
“Who … the fuck are you?” I demand, baffled.
“Another of your kind put to earth by the council.”
I slam the palm of my hand into the wooden coffin lid without any results. “To earth means they buried us alive?”
“It does.”
“Fuck. This can’t be happening.” I press the heels of my trembling hands to my eyes. “This can’t be happening.” I say the words over and over and then start to cry.
“You must not fear,” says the man in the box beside me. “They won’t let you die. I’m fucked but you aren’t.”
“They?” I repeat. “The fucking council that put me here? I’m pretty sure they want me dead!”
“No. Myca.”
Myca. He’ll find me. He’ll know something is up. Thinking of him deflates some of my fear, and my hope blooms. Myca has the ability to find me and won’t let anything happen to his mate. Not this week, at least.
“You just have to stay calm,” the man says. “There’s not a lot of air down here.”
I suck in a deep breath, hearing the sense of his words.
“Okay. I can do that,” I reply, though I want to scream again. “Do you know where we are?”
“No. But we’re at least twenty feet down.”
I choke back tears, unable to speak.
“I think we are,” he adds. “A normal vampire can smell blood between six and eight feet underground. I assume they’d put you twice that at least, because Myca is so much older.”
I’ve been attacked, vivisected and now, buried alive on the trials. Is there a point where this madness becomes normal?
His warning about air prevents me from breaking down, and I make every effort possible not to slip into the panic churning in my breast. I need to survive until Myca finds me. Exhausting my air supply is the worst possible thing I can do right now.
“Why are you here?” I ask bitterly. “Did you kill forty three thousand people?”
“A few,” he admits. “Accidentally. I believe this punishment to be an attempt at vampire-assisted suicide.”
I give a startled laugh and then find I can’t stop. I’m borderline hysterical, laughing until my stomach hurts and I start to feel dizzy from taking shallow breaths.
“It’s not amusing at all,” he says, an odd note in his voice.
I manage to stop and squeeze my eyes closed. Tears trickle down my face. “I know. Well, it sort of is. Vampire-assisted suicide. Isn’t that a nice way of saying one of us is supposed to kill the other?”
“It won’t come to that.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I have faith.” His tone is firm and warm. “Don’t you?”
“What? No! How can you have faith in anything down here?” I demand.
“Myca will find you. I believe this.”
It makes sense. I believe it, too, or at least, that he’ll try. If I’m really buried beneath twenty feet of ground, though …
Ben found me. Tristan found me. Myca will stop at nothing to do the same. I’ve never had anyone in my life to turn to, never thought I’d need someone. Three times during the trials, I’ve been forced to turn to someone else. Does that make me weak? Stupid? Or … is it okay to ask for help when I need it, despite what my father raised me to believe about being completely self sufficient?
How often in my life will I be in a position like this?
It probably depends on how many other clans bear a grudge against a demon.
It hurts my head to think about it. “You’re right,” I manage. “Myca will find us.”
“And we’ll save our air.”
“Okay.” I start to cry and stop myself. “Not to sound mean, but I’m glad you’re here. I hate enclosed spaces like this. I’d be going crazy if you weren’t with me. Not that you deserve to be buried alive.”
“I don’t think anyone likes being buried alive.” His tone is factual.
I smile, suspecting he really doesn’t know how funny he comes across. “How long was I out?”
“I’m not sure. I woke up shortly before you did.”
So neither of us knows where we were taken, how far away from help we are, or even what time of day it is. It was mid-afternoon when I was dragged before the council, and my stomach is rumbling. It’s probably somewhere around my normal dinnertime, between six and seven. That means we weren’t taken too far away from town.
Then again, it’d take a lifetime to search every inch of forest within three or four hours of town.
“It’s Saturday?” I ask.
“Yes.”
Shit. I have three more days as a vampire. So, Myca needs to find me soon, or I’m going to be in trouble if I shift back into my normal Kingmaker self. From what little I know about my family, I don’t have any cool regenerative powers.
What good are demons anyway?
Anguish spirals through me. I wish I’d never pushed for answers from the fucking vampire council. At least I understand why no one in the Community likes me, but there’s absolutely nothing pleasant about acknowledging the Community has a right to hate me.
I reach for my pocket, praying I have a cell phone despite clearly recalling where I left it.
I’m not wearing my clothes. I’m in what feels like a sleeping gown. It’s light and thin. No underwear or shoes and …
“Dammit.” My amulet is gone. Again. I’m definitely not upholding my end of the bargain to keep it on, but at this point, whatever use it’s supposed to have, has been lost, since I’ve had it removed on every trial. “Do you think we can dig our way out?”
“No.”
I roll my eyes and test the wooden boards above my head. They’re sagging beneath the weight of dirt. If I let myself think too much about where I am, I’m going to sob myself to death.
“I’m having a really bad month,” I tell him, needing to talk to distract myself. “You ever feel like the world is conspiring against you, and you’re fucked no matter what you do or say?”
He snorts. “Too often.”
“I guess a lot of supernaturals feel that way. Probably because we’re different,” I muse. “And I’m way different apparently.”
“Would you be normal, if you could be?”
“Maybe not boring-normal, but I wouldn’t be a …” I can’t say the word. “I wouldn’t be something people hate or someone who has to do terrible things because of a fucking curse no one remembers. I mean, seriously! No one, not even the vampires, remember what happened! How is a contract like that at all valid?”
“The Community has a long memory, and the clans are interdependent. It can be difficult, if not impossible, to break a bond with so many different peoples and magics involved.”
“What if they all want the same thing?” I challenge.
“Do they?”
“Yes. Of course!”
“Then it should be doable.”
“Should be and can be done are two different things.”
“They’re not so far apart,” he replies. “Semantics. What power do words hold once we no longer give their meaning influence over us?”
I frown and twist my head. Of course, I can’t see him, but I squint and try anyway. “That’s pretty profound for a confessed murderer.”
“Confessed, accidental murderer,” he corrects me.
“Seriously?” I sigh. “You claim words mean nothing but insist on your murders being accidental. Talk about semantics. Shouldn’t you call those deaths … I don’t know … not murders. Murder implies you did something to those people to make them die.”
He’s quiet briefly before he responds. “True.”
“How do you accidentally murder people anyway?”
“Ego’s a good way. Ignorance, jealousy, passion, or maybe -”
“I get the point,” I snap. “Basically you did something stupid.”
“You might be oversimplifying things.”
“No. I’m not,” I respond moodily. “You did something stupid, and people died. Whether or not you meant them to, they did.”
Another pause. “Maybe.” He sounds defensive.
“I hope they were members of the vampire council,” I mutter.
He chuckles.
“I don’t actually wish that,” I say, feeling bad, despite my anger towards the vampires. “I might go so far as to wish them buried alive for a few days to teach them a lesson.”
