“It’s probably best that they don’t ask any more questions,” I said. “Can you compel them to go to sleep?”
“I can,” she said. “But sleep is another one of those things that’s best handled by a potion—not by compulsion. Don’t worry, though. I’ve got it covered.” She pulled out her phone, tapped on the screen a few times, and held it to her ear. “I need you to bring two doses of sleeping potion to my cabin right away,” she said to whoever was on the other side of the line. “I give you permission to teleport straight inside.”
A few seconds later, a woman appeared in the center of the cabin. She had dark hair and skin, and she wore the same all-white outfit as everyone else in the Haven.
“Bring down the sound barrier,” Mary told me, and I repeated the command to Geneva, who did as I asked.
“Two sleeping potions.” The witch held up the vials and smiled at Mary. “Just as you asked.”
“Sleeping potions?” Raven’s eyes went wide with alarm. “You’re giving those to us?”
“Relax,” Mary said to the humans, her voice full of compulsion. “Stay where you are. When I hand you your vial, you’ll drink it with no complaint.”
She walked over to the witch and took both of the vials. When she handed a vial to Susan, the older woman uncapped it and drank the potion just as instructed. Before she had a chance to fall, Mary caught her mid-air and laid her down on the bed. With her vampire speed, it took her only a few seconds.
Then she took the second vial and handed it to Raven.
The girl took the vial as she was compelled to do, but she was slow, as if trying to fight off each movement. “You betrayed me,” she said to me, her eyes burning with rage as she uncapped the vial and drank the liquid inside.
She blinked a few times, as if trying to fight off the haze of sleep, but she succumbed to it a few seconds later.
I caught her and laid her on the bed next to Susan.
After all, Mary wasn’t the only one here with super speed.
Guilt wracked through my body as I looked at their unconscious forms. Should I have given them a choice? I suspected Susan would have been willing to forget everything she’d been through, but Raven… I highly doubted the stubborn, fiery girl would have ever agreed.
“This was the best choice.” Mary placed a hand on my shoulder, bringing me back into focus. “They’re humans. You and I both know that humans never fare well in our world.”
“We do.” I nodded, since it was true. The only humans I knew of who knew about the supernatural world were blood slaves to the vampires.
I would never wish that life upon anyone.
Mary turned away from me, focusing on the witch who’d brought the sleeping potion. “Escort Geneva to the apothecary,” she said, back to business now that the humans were asleep. “She has a memory potion to brew.”
Annika
“Geneva is hurting,” Mary said the moment her witch and Geneva were out of the cabin.
“She’s pissed at me.” I crossed my arms, irritated at the witch for the attitude she’d been giving me all morning. “I have no idea what I did to her, but she’s definitely pissed.”
“You killed Laila,” Mary said, and then she looked at me, her eyes widening. “You didn’t know,” she said. “Did you?”
“Know what?” I asked, since obviously I didn’t.
“Let’s sit down.” She returned to her place on the couch, and I did the same, giving one more glance to the humans who were sound asleep on the bed. “Now,” she said once we were situated. “What do you know about Geneva?”
“Not much,” I said. “Just that she’s from the time of the Great War and that she’s the most powerful witch in the world. She helped the vampires and witches in the war against the Nephilim.” I paused, the word Nephilim holding a lot more weight now that I was a Nephilim.
Had I always been a Nephilim? Or had something happened to me in the throne room—when I’d driven that stake through Laila’s heart—that had turned me into one?
“I’ll answer all of your questions about your kind soon,” Mary said, apparently sensing my desire to know more. “But now that Geneva’s not here, we must discuss her first.”
“Okay.” I nodded, resisting the urge to bombard Mary with a million questions at once. Because she was right. With Geneva occupied with making the memory potion, now was the time for me to learn all about this snarky, powerful witch that I’d literally had in the palm of my hand since touching the sapphire ring in that cave.
“What more do you know about her?” Mary prodded.
“After the Great War, the witches became scared of Geneva because of her power,” I said. “They couldn’t kill her, so they banded together and created the spell to lock her inside the ring. Then they tossed the ring into the Crystal Cavern, where no one was supposed to be able to get it. Until me, of course.”
“Yes.” Mary smiled. “Until you.”
“I guess that’s all I know about her,” I said. “She helped me come up with the plan to get into the palace so I could try to kill Laila, but beyond that, she hasn’t mentioned anything about her past.”
And I hadn’t asked. At the realization, I felt terrible.
I’d been so consumed with what I’d been doing that I hadn’t bothered to ask Geneva anything about herself. Of course, with all the snark she’d given me since the moment she came out of that ring, I didn’t get the feeling that she wanted to tell me anything about herself, but still. I should have tried.
“Do you know why the witches felt the need to lock Geneva inside the ring?” Mary asked.
“They were afraid of her power.” I knew that much—it had been one of the first things Geneva had told me when she’d come out of the ring.
I’d also already said that, which left me wondering where Mary was going with this.
Only one thought came to mind—there was a lot more to this story than I knew.
“They weren’t afraid of her power,” Mary said. “They were afraid of what she was trying to do with it.”
“What was she trying to do?” I asked.
“She was trying to become immortal,” Mary said. “So she could be with Laila forever."
Annika
“Geneva… and Laila?” I blinked, since I must have misunderstood.
Geneva had been helping me in my plan to kill Laila.
Hadn’t she?
“I see you’re confused,” Mary said. “To put it simply—back when they were fighting in the Great War together, Geneva and Laila fell in love.”
“But I wanted to kill Laila,” I said, stunned that my initial feeling after what Mary had told me had been correct. “Geneva was helping me kill Laila.”
I said it, but at the same time, I was starting to realize that maybe everything hadn’t been as clear-cut as I’d originally thought. The entire time in the palace, Geneva had reason after reason about why I needed to wait to kill Laila. She hadn’t even seemed to have put much of an effort into figuring out how I was going to kill Laila.
I’d assumed the delay had been because killing a vampire queen was a difficult thing to plan.
It was only now starting to dawn on me that much, much more had been going on beneath the surface than had originally met the eye.
“Geneva was using me to get herself closer to Laila,” I whispered. “She never intended for Laila to die.”
“Correct,” Mary said. “Geneva is extraordinarily dangerous. If that ring had gotten into Laila’s hands…” She shook her head, apparently not wanting to voice the possibilities aloud.
“That was her goal, wasn’t it?” I held the ring tightly on my finger, as if that could make it stay put. “She didn’t want me to have the ring. She wanted Laila to have the ring.”
“Maybe,” Mary said. “Geneva’s tricky—I can’t say exactly what her goal was. But before she was cursed, she was determined to become immortal.”
“Couldn’t Laila have just turned her into a vampire?” I asked.
>
“She could have,” Mary said. “But then Geneva would have lost her magic—and she’d be a lower rank than Laila. She wanted neither of those things. She wanted to be an immortal witch.”
“Does that even exist?” I asked.
“Not that anyone knows of,” she said. “But that didn’t stop Geneva from trying to create a potion for immortality. You see, the story you heard is only partway true. The witches were intimidated by Geneva’s power, yes, but that’s not why they locked her in the ring and cursed her for eternity.”
“What did she do?” My stomach dropped in anticipation.
“While experimenting with inventing an immortality potion, Geneva needed to test out her creations,” Mary began. “So she kidnapped other witches—less powerful witches who lived in small covens within the human world—to use as test subjects. She kept them in the dungeon of the Vale’s palace and made them drink her creations. It killed most of them, and those who survived were left in so much pain that they were driven crazy by it and eventually had to be put down.”
“Oh my God.” I sat there in shock, my insides twisting with horror at what Geneva had done. I almost didn’t believe it, except that I knew what she’d done to Raven, Susan, and Princess Stephenie.
Geneva clearly had no limits to the terrible things she would do to get her way. I could see now why she and Laila had fallen for each other. And I’d trusted her. I’d thought she was helping me.
I felt like the biggest idiot ever.
“It was horrible,” Mary agreed. “After each failed attempt, she kidnapped more witches to experiment on. But the witches refused to allow her to continue. They couldn’t kill her—they couldn’t even reach her. So they had to curse her from afar, which is an impossible task, even for the strongest witch.”
“But they did it,” I said, my fingers still tight around the ring. “How?”
They used their Final Spell to lock Geneva inside the ring.”
“Final Spell?” I tilted my head, since I’d never heard the term before. “What’s that?”
“A witch’s magic is their lifeblood,” Mary explained. “The stronger the witch, the more magic they have. Think of the magic like a well—a witch can use their magic until nearing the bottom of the well. Once they get too close to the bottom, they need to take a break to recharge so the well is full again.”
“So the stronger the witch, the deeper the well,” I said.
“Exactly.” Mary nodded. “Witches naturally know how much magic they can use, and when to stop using it. But occasionally, they have the need for a spell so strong that it requires all their magic at once. If they choose to cast that spell, they deplete their magic entirely. Without their magic, they can no longer live. Thus, when a witch uses all of his or her magic at once like that, it’s called their Final Spell.”
I shivered at the thought of anyone feeling so desperate that they chose to do that to themselves.
“It took the strength of seven witches—each a leader of his or her coven—to band together and cast their Final Spells to trap Geneva inside that ring and send the ring to the Crystal Cavern.” She glanced at the ring on my finger when she spoke of it, and continued. “They sacrificed themselves to make sure no other witches became one of Geneva’s experiments. Since the ring was inside of the Crystal Cavern, they assumed it would remain there until the end of time.”
“Except I was able to enter the Cavern,” I said. “Why?”
“Because of your Nephilim blood,” she said. “Thousands of years ago, the Crystal Cavern was blessed by an angel as a place for the Nephilim to safely store dangerous magical objects that couldn’t be destroyed. The cave is enchanted so only those with Nephilim blood can leave the cave unscathed. Anyone else who enters will be cursed to die.”
“Like Mike,” I said flatly, remembering how Camelia had told me that my fellow human blood slave—and best friend when I’d lived in the Vale—had been thrown from the Crystal Cavern to his death at the bottom of the mountain.
“Someone you know who entered the cave?” Mary asked.
“Yes,” I said. “Camelia—the head witch of the Vale—recruited him to enter. She said she thought he could do it because of his strength. But if what you’re saying is true, then she knew he couldn’t. She knew that no human could survive the cave.”
“She likely didn’t care about him surviving,” she said. “Non-Nephilim have entered the Crystal Cavern before. Some of them—the stronger of them—have even managed to get an object out before the cave killed them. I assume Camelia thought Mike would be strong enough to do just that.”
“He did manage to get something out,” I said. “A piece of the Omniscient Crystal.”
The piece that Camelia had looked into and learned that I was the one she should recruit to send inside the cave.
“The Vale has the Omniscient Crystal?” Mary’s eyes widened in alarm.
“No,” I told her. “One of the first wishes I made on the ring was for Geneva to steal the crystal from Camelia and bring it back to the cave.”
“Smart,” Mary said. “Get the crystal out of Camelia’s hands so she couldn’t know your plan.”
“She found out anyway.” I shrugged, still unsure about how Camelia had found everything out.
Now that I knew Geneva’s history with Laila and the Vale, I couldn’t help but think that Geneva had done something to get me found out. She must have figured out a way to turn on me. I thought I’d been careful about what I was wishing for, but apparently I hadn’t been careful enough.
“A lie as huge as the one you were telling was sure to be found out eventually,” Mary said. “If you weren’t Nephilim, you would be dead right now.”
I nodded, since I knew she was right. But none of this felt real. I’d gone from human to Nephilim overnight, and I had no idea how.
If anyone had the answer, an original vampire who’d been alive for centuries seemed like a solid bet.
“The Nephilim were all killed in the Great War,” I said, finally getting into the real meat of what I’d been wondering all day. “So how am I here now?”
Annika
“Earlier, you wondered if you became Nephilim the moment you killed Laila,” Mary said. “That’s somewhat true, and somewhat not.”
“What on Earth does that mean?” I tried to keep the irritation from my tone, but failed. Too many questions and not enough answers were driving me insane as it was. I couldn’t deal with cryptic statements from an original vampire on top of it all.
“When Nephilim are born, their powers are dormant,” she said. “Their powers only ignite after their first supernatural kill.”
I sucked in a long breath, the explanation making so much sense. I flashed back to the moment I’d driven that stake through Laila’s heart—the way my senses had suddenly sharpened, and the way I’d taken down all of those guards at once.
“I’ve never fought before,” I said slowly. “But after I staked Laila, it felt so natural.”
“Angel instinct,” Mary said. “All Nephilim have it. You’ll need to listen to your instinct if you want to survive.”
I looked down at the stake, which I’d been holding this entire time. After using it to stake Laila and kill those guards, I’d thought the stake was lucky. But that wasn’t true.
Fighting was in my blood.
“It all makes sense,” I said, since it did. “But there’s one big thing that doesn’t make sense.”
“What’s that?” Mary asked.
“The Nephilim were all killed decades ago,” I started. “They’re extinct. So how am I here?”
“The active Nephilim were killed,” she said. “So were all of their children who hadn’t yet made a supernatural kill. But we can only sense the Nephilim if their powers are ignited. I can only assume that someone whose powers weren’t ignited slipped through our sight—likely a child so young that they had no memory of what they were—and integrated with the human world. It would explain how you’re here today.
”
“Children?” I shuddered, barely having processed anything she’d said after that part. “You killed children?”
“I killed no one.” Her features hardened. “None of the vampires of the Haven participated in the violence of the Great War.”
“But you sat by as supernaturals killed children.”
“We had to,” she said. “They weren’t just any children. They were children who would eventually become Nephilim.”
“That doesn’t mean they would have become killers,” I said. “They didn’t even have a chance. You all—the supernaturals—didn’t give them one.”
“I don’t think you’re fully understanding.” Her voice was calm and measured, as if speaking to a child. “The Nephilim were originally created to fight demons. In the beginning—far before I or the other originals were born—that’s what they did. They killed them all, ridding the world of demons forever. But once the demons were gone, the Nephilim still remained—and they needed a new enemy.
“Once myself and the other originals became vampires, the Nephilim found that enemy in us. They’ve been on a mission to destroy our kind ever since. It was only after seeing Geneva’s strong powers that they decided that witches were too dangerous, too. So the witches and vampires came together and did what was necessary for our survival—we ended the Nephilim. Those children would have grown up to ignite their powers and kill supernaturals, especially after we’d been forced to fight and kill their families. The only way to prevent that from happening was to kill them first.”
“So you hate Nephilim,” I said, since that much was clear.
“We hated what the Nephilim had become,” she said. “You can’t understand because you weren’t there, but the Society of Nephilim saw the world in black and white. Good and evil. They saw themselves and humans as good, and all other supernaturals as evil. Nothing could convince them otherwise, and they conditioned their children to hate supernaturals from infancy, so their prejudice could continue from generation to generation. There was no overcoming such an intense level of brainwashing. It reached a point where it was us or them. Like I said, in a situation like that, we did what was necessary to survive.”
The Vampire Wish: The Complete Series (Dark World) Page 50
