Silence: Part Two of Echoes & Silence

by Am Hudson

  I nodded.

  “It is the same for all Originals.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “My head, like yours, can be removed by the swing of an axe.”

  “But you’re vampire—”

  “I am not vampire. I am the creator of vampires.”

  “But their bones—they don’t break. Their necks can’t be snapped, they—”

  “They are evolved. Different to me—different to you. And different, also, to Drake.”

  I touched my throat. “Does that mean Drake’s head…”

  “Yes.”

  David and I looked at each other—our eyes wide.

  “But again,” Dad said, “it is a secret you must keep at all costs. Trust no one with it.”

  “So… I never needed to snap Drake’s neck? I could’ve just…”

  “You could.” Dad’s stern eye turned on me with a warning. “And it is my belief that this is what Safia holds over him.”

  “Death? He’s afraid of death?”

  “If you have lived thousands of years—never fearing death—for another to learn your secret and hold your life so easily in their hands, would it not terrify you?”

  “Into killing people? Probably not.”

  “Would you kill for your child?” He motioned toward my belly.

  David reached over and rubbed my back. “Besides, Ara, Drake’s a bit older and bit darker than you.”

  “This is true,” Dad agreed. “But that does not mean he is not good.”

  “I know, Dad.” I patted his hand. “I spent a lot of time with him at the castle.”

  “So I’ve been told.”

  My eyes shifted from their absent wandering and fixed themselves on Dad’s. “Told by who?”

  “I went to see Drake—before I came here.”

  “Why?”

  “He released you—knowing the dangers out here for you. I needed to know if he knew that the child was soulless—if perhaps he meant you harm.”

  “Does he?”

  “If he does, he did not let on. He did, however, give me a greater insight to his motives.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The fight. I spoke earlier of seeing it burn out in him, only to surface again decades later. But when I looked into his eyes today and asked him what Anandene meant to him, he looked away—cast his eyes to the ground and said he no longer wished to talk about her. When I entered his mind I was blocked right away—but not by Drake. It was by magic.”

  I wondered then if this evil witch used the same kind of spell on herself as Drake used on me—to make others forget they’d seen her. Perhaps she was commanding Drake and then making him forget—making him think he was acting of his own volition.

  “I had that same thought myself.” Dad nodded to my head. “But he admitted the witch was alive when I asked. So he is clearly not under a mind-cloaking spell. He also said he’d not seen her in decades. But it was a lie.”

  They both looked at me then as I thought about that night in the corridor, where a strange white-haired woman touched my belly.

  “Then she has not hidden herself with a spell,” Dad said, looking at David. “She hides in plain sight.”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked.

  “You met her—Safia,” Dad said, sending a cold shiver down my spine. “I know only because I once met her too, and she has not, for all the years that have passed, changed a bit.”

  “So that was her!”

  “And Drake is working with her,” he added. “I’m sure of it now. However, I am still not convinced it is merely by threat of death.”

  “Could it have something to do with the children—the Damned?”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “He told me there was a reason that he killed them, but wouldn’t say any more.”

  Dad’s eyes widened as he sat back. “And he left three alive.”

  “What does that have to do with it?” I slid forward on my seat. “Dad!”

  “He needed the blood of only twelve innocent lives.”

  “What for?”

  Dad rubbed his face. “I’ve only heard stories—for all the centuries I’ve lived, not once have I been present in a town where this happened. But there is a legend that once in every decade, twelve children will die. Twelve lives sacrificed for what is believed to be the Spirit of Lilith—my mother—the Eater of Children.”

  “But she would never!” I insisted.

  “No, but as it happened in the same pattern for centuries, I knew it had to be an immortal. I just never realised until now that it was my own son.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “If you take into account that the witch Safia lives—that her form hasn’t changed—and you also know a thing or two about witchcraft, then the reason is clear: she requires the blood of twelve youths to drink over each decade to remain in her youthful, immortal state—”

  “So he took my children!” Tears coated my eyes so I couldn’t see. “She had him kill my children just so she could be young?”

  “And now I see Drake’s logic.” Dad nodded. “Better the children whose lives had never truly begun than the loved children of human parents.”

  My eyes watered. “And what about the next decade? What then?”

  “He will do as he has done for centuries,” Dad said. “He will kill twelve children from the human world.”

  “Why would he do that? What does she have over him? It has to be something worse than death.”

  “I would like to believe so. But until I ask him, we can only assume. And, we must also practice caution, because my son, in his heart of hearts, does not seem to want this witch wife of his alive again, which means he is driven by a deeper, darker motive. And until we know what that is, we must fear him.”

  “You mean fear you?” David said, laying his hand suddenly across my chest and pushing me slightly back.

  “Ouch! What are you doing?” I shoved his hand down, rubbing my chest.

  “You knew, Ara?” David looked from my dad to me, his tone liquid with hurt. “You already connected the dots and you never said anything.”

  “What dots?” I asked, getting rather annoyed.

  “He came to the manor that day—”” He pointed at Dad, talking about him like he wasn’t in the room, “—after his death—to kill our baby.”

  “Oh, those dots.” I winced. I probably should have mentioned that. “Look, I didn’t know anything, David. My council tried to warn me that Dad might be a threat. But I wouldn’t believe them.”

  “But he is a threat.”

  “Dad?” I said, asking beneath that single word for the truth.

  “Sadly, it is true.”

  I took a short, quick breath, covering my baby. “Why would you kill her?”

  “At first, it was because I believed she was the witch Anandene—until you mentioned your soul leaving your body while you sleep and ending up with Jason.”

  “How did that…” I stopped then as I realised. “My soul is connected to him via the contract—that’s why I’ve always wandered to him.”

  “And why you so easily fell in love with him,” Dad confirmed. “But after I realised you would not bear the witch, I decided that this had to end. Once and for all. If that child is allowed to be born, your soul can be placed within her, and—”

  “Not without your help,” I yelled. “You said it. You told me you were the only one that could move my soul, that—”

  “There is another,” David said, looking at me as he read my dad’s mind, and I saw it too—saw a day in the forest when I used the words of a spell to create a bridge over a dead leaf—opening a pathway for its Life Force to return to this realm.

  “But… that’s just plants. I can’t bring humans to life.”

  “You can.” Dad nodded. “And Drake knows you have this power. And if he knows, it is likely Safia knows. Once she finds out your child is soulless, you are in danger, because the love of a mother far outw
eighs that of a lover. If we were afraid of what Drake would do to see Anandene reborn, we should be terrified of Safia.”

  “Of Safia? You were the one that was going to kill my baby—kill an innocent child?”

  “As I should have done the day you were born, and your mother before her, and so on.”

  “I won’t let you do that.”

  “If she lives, Amara, the soul you place in her can be extracted one day, and if your soul is placed into an older child, or even an adult, it will blacken. She will be a cruel and heartless creature, and she will be forced to mate with Jason—her own uncle—to bring the child Anandene into the world. After which, she will be slain.”

  “I’ll teach her to protect herself.”

  “It will not be enough.”

  “Dad, you can’t be serious? Please don’t make me fight you, I—”

  “I am not here to kill her, Amara.” He smiled warmly, reassuringly. “I made a decision months ago to leave it be—perhaps to end this at the source—cut off the head of the snake, so to speak. Which is why I went to Drake—”

  “To kill him?”

  “To reason with him, I hoped—and perhaps, if he could not be reasoned with, to lock him away.”

  “But if he’s not the root of the problem…”

  “Precisely.” His lips crept up into a wicked grin. “We must kill Safia.”

  David slowly removed his arm from across my chest and looked coldly at my father. “How do we do that?”

  “We need an army to fight Safia, but first—” Dad looked at me, “—we will need to take back Loslilian.”

  “Then I’d better go into town so I can call Drake,” I said.

  “We’ll go tomorrow,” David said. “I need to check in with Jason, too—make sure he’s still safe.”

  “Before any of that,” Dad cut in, “I need to move Sam and Vicki to a safe place.”

  “Why?”

  “Because, in order to save the human race from the possibility of Anandene, I needed to become the vampire once more—needed to be at full power for the war I feared would follow after I killed your child. Now, what I did not know then is that the war would have been driven solely by Safia’s eternal love for her daughter. I couldn’t let Sam become a victim of my past. But knowing what I know now, he is not safe merely by my absence. He needs to be taken somewhere no one will find him. And he needs to be told the truth.”

  “The truth?”

  “About what he is, who he is and…” Dad closed his eyes. “Who I am.”

  “So you’re going to tell Vicki, too?”

  “I’m left with little choice.”

  I grinned, imagining what they might say.

  “However, I want you to tell him,” Dad added.

  My grin washed away. “What?”

  “It will be easier to bear if you first tell him and I show myself later—when he’s had time to process it.”

  “Time? How long are we talking?”

  “We have a while, Ara,” David said. “An attack on such a large scale takes time to plan. If we go in to Loslilian on a whim, we’ll fail.”

  “You can visit Sam and Vicki tomorrow. That way, he will have at least a week to process it all before we must send him into hiding,” Dad said.

  “So, what, we’ll just call Vicki and tell her we magically teleported back into town?”

  “Why not?” David said. “We’ll tell her we wanted to have the baby back here—in America.”

  “Won’t she wonder why my accent hasn’t changed at all—having lived in Paris for so long?”

  “I’m sure she won’t think much past this little bundle,” David said, placing his hand and a smile on Bump.

  Dad smiled too.

  I did not smile back. “Fine, then if you want me to tell Sam the truth about his father, I want the truth about mine. And about my real mom—Rose.”

  “You have the truth.”

  “No. You told me she died in childbirth, but she didn’t—she died giving up her soul, and…” My eyes narrowed at Dad, hoping he would finally admit what I knew all along. “She wasn’t your sister, was she?”

  “No.”

  “She was…”

  “My adopted daughter, as was your namesake Amara.” He sat back and absently adjusted the button on his sleeve. “As each girl passed on, I drank blood and reversed my age, continuing my life as a younger man—raising their daughters as my own.”

  “And what about my real father? Were you telling the truth when you said he died in Afghanistan, or do you just not want me to know who he really is?”

  “I was telling the truth.” Dad took a deep breath and shook his head in that way people did when they wished they had better news. “I’m sorry, honey. You will never know your father, but please know that he was a kind man, and that there is still a family out there—an aunt at least—that would one day love to meet you.”

  I looked up at David and he smiled softly at me.

  “Guess that means I’ll never get the sister I always wanted,” I said.

  “I’m sorry, Ara,” David said, gently brushing my hair over my shoulder.

  “Perhaps, once all this chaos has passed,” Dad said, “I will find a new life partner and give you a baby sister.”

  “You plan to go back?” I asked. “To being human?”

  “It is my preferred state.”

  “Wow, so the mission to kill my baby must have been greatly important to you—to make you give up your human life, and your son.”

  “If you understood what Anandene did to the world, to my firstborn son—”

  “I know she was evil—brought a plague, but that’s all, right? I mean—”

  “Have you ever watched an infant die of the plague?” he asked, knowing the answer already.

  “Um. No, can’t say I have.”

  “Until you have seen the fear, the anguish, the suffering of imminent death, do not brush it away so lightly as to say ‘that’s all’.” His stern voice seemed to run through me, making me hold my breath, even as he paused. “Anandene cared nothing for this world, she revelled in the suffering of the weak, and she changed my son into a man I feared. But what I have seen in him of late is the boy I left when he was human—the boy Lilith, my daughter, loved. And I would give anything to see this version of him remain.”

  “Even kill your own daughter’s unborn baby?”

  “Even that.”

  Of all the people that had hurt me, of all the people I forgave for hurting me, Dad would be the hardest. I wanted to forgive him and move on. But I knew my heart wouldn’t let me—not knowing how close my baby came to death—saved by one sentence. One realisation that David was the wrong Knight and that the baby was soulless. And thinking about her being soulless made another question arise.

  “I was soulless.” I touched my belly. “Stillborn. Will she be too—because she doesn’t have a soul?”

  “You were stillborn because Rose suffered a traumatic birth. But your grandmother Amara lived soulless in her mother’s arms for almost twelve hours before I moved the soul.”

  “Why did you do it then—move Rose’s soul?” My head hurt with confusion. “If I was dead, then this entire mess was over. Why did you move the soul into me at all?”

  “Rose begged me, so I agreed, in the hopes that once the soul left one body and entered a dead one, it would cross over, and this nightmare would finally end.”

  “But… you just said a vessel can live without a soul for a while.” I tried to make sense of it, but I couldn’t. “Did Rose know that I lived, or did she die as soon as the soul left her?”

  “Amara.” He shook his head in annoyance. “I thought you would have caught on by now.”

  I shook my head to say no.

  “Each time I moved the soul from one daughter to her newborn babe, I also ended her life,” he said, but I still didn’t get it, so he added, “With my own two hands.”

  My heart shattered as I drew a quick lungful of air, covering my mout
h, imagining him killing my mother. And from that, my stomach filled with rage. “Then, if you find it so easy to kill, why not just kill me—with the soul in me?”

  “To kill a creature without a soul is no sin,” he said simply. “When Lilith’s soul brought you back from death, or perhaps it was this Cerulean Magic, who knows, I knew the good Lord had taken the decision out of my hands.”

  “But my baby is soulless.” I felt as if I should move away from him. “You’re contradicting yourself, Dad. You said you came to kill Anandene. But she would’ve had a soul—”

  “And I would have committed a mortal sin to rid the world of her evil.”

  “Except, since my baby has no soul, it wouldn’t be a sin, so what’s stopping you from taking her life?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Then why aren’t you?” I slapped the table. “The truth please?”

  “Call it hope, or perhaps love—for my daughter. I have to go,” he said quickly, standing up. “I will gather my resources and meet with Drake, and return here in two days’ time to discuss the plan.”

  “And what about Sam—and Vicki?” I asked, standing up too. “You just want me to turn up on their doorstep and… dot, dot, dot?” I rolled my hand around in the air as if it, combined with the ellipsis, implied a story.

  Dad bowed his head slightly. “I leave it in your hands.”

  My eyes shrunk. “You coward.”

  Dad didn’t defend himself; didn’t say anything—he just walked past me, taking all the respect I once had with him. Then he glided down the steps and hopped in his car and drove away down the bumpy road, leaving behind nothing but a pile of questions and a horrible, empty feeling in my throat.

  Chapter Seven

  David and I lay awake all night talking it out—how we’d break things to Sam and Vicki; why Drake might have been relieved to get me out of the castle; where Arthur had gone; and whether or not we should send Jason away with Sam for safety, or use him to help win back the manor.

  My bones felt heavy with so many things running through my mind, and yet too light with the thought that my own dad came to the manor to kill my baby that day. But the worst part was, I understood why, and I didn’t feel angry. I just felt hurt, and scared, and lucky that things turned out the way they did. But I couldn’t make myself feel anger.