by Nikki Kelly
“Yeah, part and parcel of being all, well, you know…” I sat beside her as she foraged around in her bag for a tissue.
Finding one, she patted her cheeks and laughed. “Silly really. I was just thinking about Fergal, but when I think about him, I think about my daddy, and Padraig, and my ma of course.” Iona’s list was long, too long, longer than anyone like her deserved it to be. “It’s wrong of me to be sad. I shouldn’t be. They’re in a better place. They’re with the Lord now.” She tucked her long, wayward strands back into her side ponytail. “I guess it’s just—now, now that I’m like this, it may be a very long time before I see their faces again.”
Iona was Of Elfi. Both she and her twin, Fergal, were children of a fallen Angel. Unlike her brother, her soul had been clean and light when she’d turned seventeen, causing her form to become frozen, meaning that just like a fallen Angel’s, the length of her life was now vastly extended. But with no abilities to protect her, if she wasn’t careful, “a very long time” might be sooner than she thought.
“I try to picture their faces, when I close my eyes at night, but I struggle,” she confessed.
I nudged her with my elbow. “Maybe that’s the problem. It’s hard to see when you’re searching in the dark.” My mind turned to the scavenger in the third. “Maybe, instead, think of the memory of them, and then open your eyes. Where the darkness ends, and the light begins, right there, in the gray, you’ll see them.” Gabriel came to mind next, all the years the memory of him had haunted me. How he had been so close, but so far away. “Remembering keeps the lost with us, until we can one day find them again.”
Iona smiled. “Sometimes, just in case they can hear, when I’m alone, I sing. Then they’d know I was thinking of them, see, ’cause we had a song. My ma would sing it to us when we were small. It’s the only thing I have left that connects me to them, to the people I love the very most.” With kind eyes, Iona asked, “Will you pray with me?” She placed her hands together again and bowed her head. “Pray that they hear me, that my song reaches them?” I coughed awkwardly but nodded, and she whispered, “You do believe in God, don’t you?”
Just then, the sun’s rays struck the stained-glass window in such a way that the image of Jesus nailed to the cross glowed from within. My pending meeting with Darwin on my mind, I answered plainly, “I believe in the man wearing the jacket.”
Iona regarded me quizzically, and as she did, the strobes of light hit her white blouse. The unmistakable sparkle of my oldest, and at times only, comfort glowed from under the silk.
“Iona, your necklace?”
Iona placed her palm to her chest and then pulled the chain out from below her top, revealing my crystal gem, still set within the engagement ring Gabriel had Ruadhan make for me. Gabriel had lost his light when his own crystal, which had been buried in the nape of his neck, had failed. Unlike him, I didn’t need my crystal to retain my abilities, and so before falling into the third, I had left it for him. Gabriel had told me that light was love, and so I thought that when he let me go and allowed himself to love Iona, his light would be restored with my crystal. Then he would regain his immortality and could live happily, forever with Iona. But in the three years I’d been gone, evidently that hadn’t happened.
“Gabriel gave that to you?” I asked, confused. Why, when Gabriel refused to give up on me, had he passed my crystal, set in an engagement ring, to Iona?
Rolling the platinum band over her knuckles, she said, “No, Ruadhan gave it to me yesterday for safekeeping. He said that it’s very special and has great purpose—that I would know what to do with it when the time came.” She paused. “Do you know what he meant, Lailah?”
Ruadhan must have been guarding the crystal since I’d left. It was only good sense that he did. Gabriel was fallen, but Ruadhan was still a Vampire; his hands were safer until, hopefully, the time came when Gabriel’s gifts returned. But the fact that Ruadhan had now charged Iona with its safekeeping meant he wasn’t sure he’d still be around to continue to do so himself. He was preparing to fight, to be by my side as he’d promised, but clearly he was making provisions should he not be one of the last left standing when all was said and done.
“One thing about Ruadhan is that he says what he means, and means what he says. I’d take stock of his words if I were you. They are always wise ones. Even if you don’t understand now, you will, I am sure of it. Just…”
“Yes?”
“Don’t take it off, okay? And stay close to Gabriel.”
Iona regarded my ring once more before slipping it underneath her blouse. Placing her hand firmly down on top, she said, “I promise. So will you pray with me?”
“If I do, then will you go home? You know you shouldn’t be here alone. How’d you even get in? I was told the church was closed except for Sundays. Weren’t the gates locked earlier this morning?”
“I had the caretaker open them for me. He works for my family, so he kinda has to do what I ask, like.” She blushed, almost embarrassed.
I nodded and shuffled my bottom side to side on the uncomfortably hard pew; I clasped my hands together and bowed my head.
Iona spoke aloud, and I recognized parts of the prayer from the one given by Fergal over the dinner table the first evening I had broken bread with the Sealgaire. But then at the end, she added her own words. “Lord, please bless and keep Lailah, bestow unto her the same grace she bestows to others. Forgive her sins and show mercy.”
Not a selfish bone in her body, Iona wasn’t praying for me to save them, she was simply praying for my soul.
“Thank you,” I said, raising my chin, and I sincerely meant it.
* * *
THE DAY WAS DRAWING IN. It was close to nightfall now. I escorted Iona back to the main house. She promised not to leave again without protection. With still no sign of Jonah, I said good-bye to Ruadhan for a second time. Gabriel wasn’t there, either; after Iona had given Gabriel the slip, he had gone in search of her. And so I left.
Though it took me no time at all to reach the port in Dublin, I’d had to use my ability to influence to get a seat on one of the few boats carrying passengers across to Holyhead. Due to the “Spinodes,” the UK was on high alert, and gaining entry into the country without imperative reason was not easy—well, unless you happened to be me.
It had taken mere minutes to travel by thought from Holyhead to the exclusive road of Egerton Crescent in Chelsea, and though Darwin had handed me his business card with his address, I hadn’t needed it to find the property. Using the power of thought, I’d only had to visualize the whitewashed villa and my legs had brought me here. It was a gray and drab evening in London, and from the muddy puddles, it was clear that it had been raining for some time.
Approaching Darwin’s house, I thought myself invisible to shield myself from the private guards that patrolled the outside of the expensive four-story villa.
Using my abilities to travel here had once again reminded me that I needed to refuel, and so I slunk away, following Exhibition Road. It was nearly five o’clock, and most of the local residents had already locked themselves away for the evening curfew. I had never known London’s streets to be so empty. The groan of heavy tanks and the march of military personnel broke the silence and set the scene for war.
I sniffed the air, searching for a scent that appealed to me, and I found one leaving through the gates of Imperial College. I continued to cloak myself, following the teenage girl as she headed toward Hyde Park. Once she turned off the street and passed through the arched gates, she was careful not to veer away from the path, passing by troops who were selecting their guard posts along the trails that ran through the huge park. Though something about her scent alone told me she was a dark soul, I squinted out of my good eye, ensuring there was no glow framing her body. There wasn’t. Her energy was dark. She would do.
As the sun began to set, the brunette hurried, struggling with her heavy book bag and shifting the weight from hip to hip. At the path’s
curve, there was a small cluster of bushes and trees. That was where I waited.
I had only ever drunk from Jonah, never a mortal, and though I would take the dark energy along with her blood, it wouldn’t be as powerful as taking it from a Vampire.
The girl was on the phone now, reassuring the caller on the other end that she was only a few minutes away from home. I took my opportunity. Her cell clattered to the ground as I stole her away from the path and into the cluster of trees.
My arm pressed against her chest, restraining her, and my left hand slapped over her mouth before she could scream. Only when I was ready did I stop concealing myself, concentrating now instead on the task at hand.
Tipping her jaw, I exposed her neck, and the girl’s eyes widened as I breathed in the sweat trickling down her neck.
My fangs cracked, and I dug them into her flesh, propping the girl up when her knees bowed. Every mouthful of her blood revitalized me, her dark energy merging with mine, topping up my tank.
Though taking from this girl served its purpose, it was nothing like drinking from Jonah. She was nowhere near as satisfying. When I consumed Jonah’s blood, he intoxicated me. I was left barely able to remember my own name. This girl’s blood was hardly giving me a buzz. It was simply doing what it needed to. There was nothing enjoyable about it.
Jonah had been confused as to why the idea of his drinking from someone else had bothered me. Now I understood. There was absolutely no comparison.
Bright red blood dribbled down my chin as I unhooked my fangs and withdrew. I swilled the last of it around my mouth and swallowed before licking my lips, cleaning away the evidence of my crime.
As I loosened my arm across my victim’s chest, she didn’t struggle, and quickly I checked her pulse to make sure she’d just passed out. Carefully, I let her collapse in my arms and dragged her over to a tree near the pathway, propping her up against it. I couldn’t risk leaving her hidden in the foliage. It was too dangerous to abandon her—exposed and vulnerable—out in the dark and cold, but no amount of shaking was waking her up. She remained alive but unconscious.
The girl might have a dark soul, but that didn’t mean she deserved to die. Whistling loudly, I gained the attention of a nearby soldier, and masking myself, I waited until he’d found her before leaving.
I returned to Egerton Crescent, and I stood in the communal gardens, which looked onto the front of the villas. The face of my father, Azrael, flashed into my thoughts. The memory of following him through this very garden and of using my bare hands to execute him were as fresh as the blood I’d just consumed. The words that had left me, sentencing him to that death, still wet my lips.
I took a tissue from my coat pocket and dabbed away any remaining evidence of my crime from the corner of my mouth. Putting on my very best smile, I approached Darwin’s front door.
FIFTEEN
I HANDED THE MAN IN BLACK Darwin’s business card, and he eyed me suspiciously. Out in the cold, I waited patiently at the bottom of the steps. The clip-clop of Darwin’s brogues against the granite floor sped up as he neared, and at the front door, the broadly built security guard turned away from me, blocking Darwin from view.
“Cessie!” Darwin exclaimed, patting the man on the shoulder as he stepped around him.
“Hi,” I said smoothly.
“I’m so pleased to see you.” Rushing down the steps, he stretched out his arms, preparing to take my hands by way of his usual greeting. But with a quick glance from left to right, he curled his fingers and withdrew, hurrying me inside instead. “Come, come.”
After whisking me into the warmth of the house, Darwin wasted no time in taking my bag and coat. The last time I’d been here, I was dressed head to toe in couture, while this second time around I was a little more mishmashed in my plain jeans and shirt but ornate crystal hairpin and butterfly face mask.
From behind me, Darwin rubbed the length of my arms up and down. “You’re not wearing a jumper. You must be freezing.”
“Thank you.” I smiled. “I’m fine.” Darwin didn’t know that I could control my own temperature.
“May I offer you a drink?” Leading me through the hall to a reception room, he offered me a seat on a leather chesterfield in front of a Victorian fireplace. Darwin slicked back his blond hair and pushed his glasses over the small bump just below the arch of his nose. “Perhaps a glass of cabernet?”
“Sure,” I replied, swallowed up by the worn leather.
The fire beside me crackled, the yellow and orange flames rising high, and for a brief second, the burning inverted pentagram from the third flashed in my mind.
Darwin returned with two wineglasses in one hand and what was surely a very expensive bottle in the other.
He was careful as he poured, and I found myself reading the text on Darwin’s white T-shirt beneath his tweed blazer. “‘Don’t panic and carry a towel’?” I mused aloud.
Darwin handed me my glass, and then glanced down at his shirt. “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.” He grinned.
Of course. “A firm favorite of yours. I’d read it, but I’m short on time.”
“Then make some. I guarantee it will change your life.”
Darwin took a seat, leaving a small gap between us on the sofa, and swished his wine around his glass contemplatively. “You’re not planning on staying, are you?” He surprised me by reading the situation correctly.
“And you know that how?” I sipped my drink.
“You’re still wearing your mask. If you’d decided to take me up on my offer, you wouldn’t be.”
“I’m just passing through. I was hoping to take another look at one of your paintings, the one hanging on your landing that depicts the apocalypse?” There was no reason to make up an excuse for my visit.
Darwin regarded me quizzically, tipped back his glass, and then said, “Of course you may. Is there any particular reason it’s of interest to you?”
“Lately, with what’s going on in the world, and with what you said to me, I’ve been thinking about the end,” I answered honestly.
“And so you thought about that god-awful painting? You think there’s something behind it? Well, besides a madman?” When I didn’t answer immediately, he said, “I had you down as a lot of things, Cessie, but not a fool. Seers, signs, sortilege … it’s all hokum.” He necked his remaining wine and I took another sip of mine.
“You said your own father, a respected man of great stature, would see signs in things, hidden messages.…” I paused, waiting to see if he would interject. When he didn’t, I continued to press my point. “You’d brand me a fool for considering one man’s prophecy, but you’d expect me to accept yours without question?”
“There is an incredible difference between my message and the one the creator of that monstrosity was trying to send. My warning is founded on truth, a truth formed from cold, hard facts. All we know about that painting is that it’s terribly old and that the artist was a seer, which of course is not a real thing. No one can see into the future.”
My eyebrows arched automatically.
Darwin continued with a dark undertone. “They say he experienced a vision so very dreadful that he actually blinded himself before painting it.” He stopped, his tone lightening. “Makes absolutely no sense, and, though ugly as it is, I highly doubt a visually impaired person, and newly so no less, could paint something as delineated as that.”
Darwin’s thought process was in many ways similar to Jonah’s. Jonah had discussed with me once before the expectation versus the reality of being dubbed a “Vampire,” explaining to me that factual accounts over time had been reduced to stories, stories that through a game of telephone became distorted. The story attached to the portrait might not be accurate anymore, but if the painting was acting as a sign, there was a message waiting to be delivered within it.
“I’d still like another look, if you wouldn’t mind.” Placing my glass down, I rose to my feet.
Ever the gentleman, Darwin stood
from the sofa and said, “Of course.” As he escorted me back into the hallway, his hand drifted to the small of my back and he nudged me toward the left side of the wraparound staircase. Reaching out for the cast-iron rail, I glanced up to the chandelier hanging majestically from the ceiling, glinting and glimmering in place of its predecessor. I hesitated as I recalled the shrieks from the Vampires, drowning out the screams from the guests, as they’d flooded through the house in search of the crystals from Styclar-Plena, which Gabriel had come here to trade with his business partner—Darwin’s father, Sir Montmorency. For me it had only been days ago, but for Darwin several years had gone by.
“Are you quite all right?” Darwin asked.
“Yes,” I assured him. The light from the grand chandelier reflected off his retro glasses and caused me to squint. Rushing across the landing, I wasted no time picking out the artwork.
Darwin hung behind me, and the varnished hardwood floorboards squeaked beneath his shoes as he rocked back and forth on his heels. Pushing my hair behind my right ear with one hand, I swayed the other one in front of the portrait, imprinting the detail inch by inch into my memory.
The first time I had seen the painting I’d been hours from fading into nothing. It wasn’t so much the images that had left an impression on me but the feeling instead. Pins and needles had traveled down my neck and rippled over my spine, and were doing so again. And as before, the vibration they created wasn’t warm beneath my skin; instead it made my soul freeze.
Slightly off center, the robot Jonah had sketched stood on what appeared to be a blood-coated grassy verge, its upside-down triangular eyes a luminous green. The emphasis was placed upon the ball of white light shooting high into the air.
As I strained, searching for something, anything, to confirm what I suspected I knew, my right eye wandered. The portrait shifted out of focus until I was seeing double. Now there was the actual painting and a hazy version appearing next to it.
I took a step back, allowing the painting to fall even further out of focus. The distorted images were mere color blocks. I could see now what I hadn’t been able to before.
