Stolen Secret

by Emily Kimelman Gilvey

  Taking a deep breath, I scanned the forest, using both my eyes and my chi. It seemed normal… as normal as it got since the walking of the skeletons. The trees still struggled to recover the early loss of their leaves, and when the trees struggled, so did everything else in the eco system. “You’re a good person,” Megan said quietly. “I swear.” My throat tightened again. She took my hand. “And besides—” She smiled. “—we have a blood oath. So if you’re going to hell, so am I.”

  I coughed out a laugh. “Thanks.” I squeezed her hand. “Every girl needs a bestie willing to brave eternal damnation with her.”

  “Anytime.”

  “We should probably get going.”

  “Issa wants at those books. Hopefully, he’s awake.”

  “I know, he was banging on our door. Emmanuel almost killed him.”

  “See,” Megan said, grinning. “He’d kill me if I fed from you.”

  “You say that like it’s funny.”

  She shrugged. “Vampire humor.”

  I coughed a laugh. “In that case, good one.” I punched her arm.

  Megan started back toward the town. “I know we need to go back to the Warlock Society, but what about your sister? Isn’t she going to come looking for you there?”

  “I bested her once, I can do it again.”

  “That’s the right attitude.” Megan’s face broke into a grin.

  Too bad I didn’t really believe it.

  Emmanuel walked with us to the spot in his world that corresponded with the Warlock Society. We held hands. My ring felt strange—heavy and alien on my finger. Not bad, just different. I carried my new pack with clean clothing on my shoulder and had changed into leather pants and one of the linen shirts.

  I squeezed Emmanuel’s hand before releasing it. He stepped closer, spanning his hand across my lower back, his gaze on my lips. “I will miss you,” he said quietly.

  Issa, still groggy from whatever Emmanuel did to him, kept his distance. Emmanuel’s powers had cowed the arrogant doctor turned vampire—nice to know something could but also kind of sad.

  “I’ll miss you too.” My voice came out tiny, scared. I cleared my throat and forced a smile. I didn’t want to leave him, but I had to.

  With his free hand, Emmanuel found mine and raised the ringed finger between us, smiling down at it. He looked young in that moment, like a boy almost. Pride and joy floated off him and glimmered in his aura. “When we next meet, I will make you my wife.”

  I leaned in close, breathing in his scent. He captured my lips. The world fuzzed at the edges and time slowed.

  Emmanuel pulled away, and we blinked at each other. The world was gone except for us, his curls creating that intimate space I craved.

  “Good luck,” he said, his breath sweet as honey.

  I nodded and forced myself to step back and turn to the vampires. Megan stared at her feet with intense concentration, a small smile curling her lips. Dimitri focused on the horizon, where the moon hung full and glowing, his jaw clenched tight. Issa kept his head down, eyes on his intertwined hands.

  “Let’s go.” I reached out a hand for Megan. She stepped forward and took it. Dimitri moved to take my other hand, keeping his gaze averted.

  “Dimitri,” Emmanuel said, drawing the vampire’s focus. “You still serve her.”

  “Always and forever, my Lord.”

  Emmanuel nodded. Issa’s hand touched my back, and I cut through reality to the void.

  “I love you,” Emmanuel said as we disintegrated into the nothingness that was everything.

  Chapter Five

  We materialized outside the gate of the Warlock Society. Issa dropped his hand from my back and stepped around me to ring the bell. He pushed his hair off his brow and glanced at me then quickly away.

  “What?” I asked.

  He met my gaze for only a second before the buzzer sounded and the gate opened. They were waiting for us.

  Tyronios met us on the other side of the gate. “I’m happy to see you’ve come back. You were always a man of your word, Issa Tor.”

  “My word is no longer my own,” Issa warned as he started up the stairs toward the entrance.

  Salty about Emmanuel knocking him out much?

  The warlocks had managed to get the doors back on the hinges. One stood open and light spilled out onto the steps. Dark bloodstains marred the marble entrance way.

  Tyronios said a few words in front of the library doors and then pushed them open. The huge space with its high ceilings and walls of books had suffered no damage from the zombies.

  Dimitri entered first, Issa right behind him. “You will find that reading is much easier now,” Dimitri said to Issa.

  Dr. Tor blurred to a shelf and pulled down a book. He flipped it open, and his eyes skimmed the page. He turned the paper so quickly it looked like he was watching a flip book. Issa sank down in a chair as he reached the back cover.

  “See, being a vampire isn’t all bad,” Megan said, laying a hand on Issa’s shoulder.

  The younger vampire looked at Dimitri. “It’s cruel, this power.” He closed the book. “To be able to gain all this knowledge. To have the ability to help so many, and yet derive no pleasure from it.”

  Well now, doesn’t that just hit smack dab in the center of all the feels?

  Dimitri cocked his head, considering Issa’s words. “You once thirsted for knowledge, and now that you can gain and retain it, you have no use for it. Yes, I see the pain there.”

  “You don’t feel it?”

  A private smile stole over Dimitri’s full lips. “Before becoming a vampire, I was a soldier in a simple time, illiterate and living on the edge of survival. Books and the knowledge they contain were of no interest to me.” His eyes found mine. There was something unreadable in them.

  “Can you read now?” Issa asked.

  Dimitri flashed a smile at him. “Yes, of course. I’ve had centuries to learn.” An expression passed across his features, and a spark illuminated his aura, turning it a rich crimson for just a moment.

  “Who taught you to read?” I asked.

  His eyes met mine, but there was no smile now, only a deep sadness. “My maker,” he answered. Oh. “Now is not the time to speak of her. Issa, may I be of use to you gathering books?” Dimitri asked.

  “I can help too,” Megan offered.

  Issa nodded, and the three of them moved to the shelves.

  Tyronios watched. “I appreciate you helping us,” I said. “Even after your place nearly got destroyed.” And the award for awkward apology goes too….

  “If you want my help, all you have to do is ask.” Tyronios bowed his head. “Your cause is mine.”

  He raised his eyes but did not meet my gaze. Smart man. “When we first met, you told me a spell protected you from my powers.”

  “Yes, but you are much stronger now.”

  “Will you tell me about that spell?”

  He raised his brows, his forehead a mass of wrinkles. “I do not know if that is the best use of our time. We have much to do.” He glanced over at Issa who already had a pile of books next to him and was skimming through one, the ruffling of the pages a blur of motion.

  “Looks like Issa is going pretty fast.”

  Megan sat across from him, a book blurring in her hands as well.

  “For you to understand the spell, I would need to explain a lot about magic to you. About the warlock tradition.”

  “And you don’t want me to know.” There was more accusation in my tone than I meant there to be.

  Tyronios shook his head. “It’s not that. The explanation will take time and is… complicated.”

  “Oh, you don’t think I can grasp it?”

  Tyronios’s smile was brief. “I’m sure you could grasp the concepts in time. But the spell I wove to protect myself from you takes deep knowledge to understand. And you are young still. It is not that you will not one day understand the concepts behind the spell, but now is not the time.” Tyronios star
ed at my clavicles.

  “Fine.” Why argue about that spell when we had much bigger fish to fry… undead fish. Ew. “Do you want to just give me a primer in magic and the warlock ways so that I can maybe help figure out what is going on with the whole”—I waved my hand around—“zombie apocalypse plague?”

  He bowed slightly. “Of course.”

  We sat down at one of the large library tables, leaving Issa to his research. I put my pack on the floor at my feet and leaned back in the wooden chair. “Let’s start with, what is magic?”

  Tyronios’s smile widened. “What is life? What is death?”

  “Sure, I’ll take those answers too.”

  He laughed. “Life is what you make of it. Death is transition. Magic is the grease that keeps the wheels moving.” He folded his hands on the table.

  Megan approached, holding a book.

  “What’s up?” I asked, turning to her.

  She laid the tome open to a lithograph in front of me. A giant cat creature roared as it reared up on its hind legs. A leather-clad woman clutching a spear leaned over the beast’s neck.

  “Looks familiar,” I said, pulling the book closer.

  Tyronios leaned forward, looking at the image. “The daughter of the shifter god.”

  “Shifter god?” I asked, running my fingers over the image. My sister?

  Megan’s hair fell over her shoulder as she bent forward. Megan is my sister. I don’t need another.

  I pushed the book to Tyronios. “What do you know about her?”

  “Ophelia, the prodigy of Mother Earth and the shifter god, Felix.”

  “Felix?” Megan said, amusement in her voice. “Doesn’t sound like such a badass.”

  Tyronios brought his gaze up to meet hers. “Felix was one of the most powerful beings in all the worlds.”

  “What happened to him?” I asked.

  “He died. We are unsure of the cause.”

  “Tell me more about Ophelia,” I said.

  “She cannot shift into an animal but can transform into anything she kills for a short time. She can control shifters and lend them her power.” Tyronios looked down at the page.

  “That’s who attacked this compound,” I said.

  His head snapped up. “Ophelia?”

  “Yes, she says we are sisters, that she wants to kill me. She can control the weather too, apparently.”

  Tyronios’s brow furrowed. “Why does she want to kill you?”

  “Her mom told her to. Something about becoming me and using Emmanuel to kill all the humans.”

  He looked confused. Join the club, buddy.

  I leaned across the table, looking at the image again. “She says we are sisters, but I don’t see how, really. I mean, she’d be my aunt if anything. Like, my great, great, great aunt. If my mother was the child of a god and Mother Earth, then Mother Earth is my grandparent. Not my mom.”

  “If you use the human genealogy metrics, that is correct,” Tyronios replied as if that was a totally normal thing to say.

  “Which metric should we use?” I asked. My voice came out growly and annoyed. Because… um… yeah. Human genealogy metrics my ass.

  “For Ophelia…” Tyronios reached into his pocket and pulled out a red ribbon. Laying it into the spine of the book as a placeholder, he turned to the back page. I craned my neck to see. Tyronios ran his finger along a list of names. Flipped back one page and then shifted the book to face me.

  His blunt-nailed finger landed on Ophelia’s name. It sat among several others on the same line. A branch rose out of it and split, listing her mother on one side and father on the other. “Looks like how humans do it,” I said.

  Tyronios shifted his finger, running it across to the opposite page. My name sat on the same side. He ran his finger along the same parallel… my mother’s name and her mother’s I assumed. Out of each one rose a name… the father of her child?

  “You are all considered the same,” Tyronios said.

  “By who?”

  “Record keepers.”

  I pushed the book away. “Bullshit.”

  Megan laughed, sitting in the chair next to me. “Total bullshit.”

  Tyronios frowned, pulling the book close. “I am telling you the truth.”

  I waved my hand back and forth. “That’s ridiculous. We can’t all be the same. We all have different fathers. Different lives.”

  “Yes, but you are the only one of your kind, so you are thought of as the one. The descendent of Mother Earth and All Mighty.”

  “That would make Emmanuel my brother,” I pointed out.

  Tyronios shook his head. “No, you were created by his father and your mother. He was born to your father and his mother.”

  My head throbbed.

  I ran a hand through my hair, closing my eyes. When I opened them, Tyronios was staring at the ring on my hand. I ignored his pointed gaze.

  “Fine, let’s just say for a minute that I am the same as Lilith. We’ll assume for the moment that time and who fathered me has nothing to do with anything.” I shrugged. “Working off that assumption, I still don’t get how Ophelia and I are sisters.”

  “She is also your mother’s creation.”

  “She wasn’t born to her?” His lips twitched into an amused smile. “What?”

  “Mother Earth cannot bear children. She creates.”

  “Can you try explaining this in a way that a regular human might understand?” I asked.

  Tyronios nodded, pushing the book aside. “When a person writes a song, they do not birth it—they created it.”

  “Right.”

  “So, you would not say that a song you wrote and a child you bore were related.”

  “Because they are totally different things. One is a living being and one is a—”

  “Can you see that your existence, when compared to a human’s, is as different as a song’s existence and a person’s?”

  That stumped me.

  “Let me see if I’m getting this,” Megan said. “Emmanuel was born to a woman.” Tyronios nodded. “And Lilith was created by All Mighty and Mother Earth—the way a song might be created by Darling and me.”

  “Exactly.”

  “That actually kind of makes sense,” Megan said.

  I turned to stare at her. “It does?”

  She shrugged. “I think so. I mean, we used to write songs together all the time, and it felt like something more than just notes on a page, right? I mean, we could feel it.” I nodded. “So, if you were an all-powerful deity, then you don’t write songs with your friends, you make beings.”

  “Exactly.” Tyronios smiled at Megan like she was the star pupil. Which would make me the dunce-cap-wearing creation, right?

  Tyronios turned his attention to me. “That is why, when you first came here, I told you that you could learn from the words in these books. Because you are more closely tied to your mother than a child born—you are your mother.”

  “Then what did I get from my father?”

  “He was an instrument.” Dehumanizing much?

  “My father was much more than an instrument.”

  Tyronios shook his head, as if to say I didn’t understand. “He was a close friend of mine; I’m not saying he wasn’t a very important person and that he didn’t love you with all his heart. But your mother—you—needed to recreate, and so you needed a man to help. You cannot make music without an instrument.”

  “So you’re saying my parents weren’t a happy couple.” Each word dripped with sarcasm. Tyronios cocked his head, his expression wary. “Forget it,” I muttered. “The point is that Ophelia thinks we are sisters because we are both creations of Mother Earth.”

  “That’s right.”

  “So, this shifter god and Mother Earth… what? Made her together, like cast a spell or something.”

  “Or something.”

  I just adore all these straightforward answers.

  Tyronios swallowed, his gaze landing on my ring again. “I see congr
atulations are in order,” he said after a beat.

  I resisted the urge to hide the ring, to pull my hand close and tuck it away where no one could see. I didn’t want anyone messing with the happiness that radiated through me when I thought about a future with Emmanuel. Any questions could make the joy tumble into reality. Not what I wanted.

  “Yes.” I cleared my throat. “Emmanuel and I are going to marry.” Tyronios nodded but didn’t say anything. His aura pulsed with swirling colors though. “Spit it out, old man.”

  His eyes met mine for a moment before he remembered himself and returned his gaze to the ring. “You two make a lovely couple.”

  “He’s lying,” Megan said. “I can smell it.”

  Tyronios’s smile was subtle. “I do not think my opinion on your impending nuptials is truly welcome.”

  Issa interrupted us, bringing over a thin volume. The Raising of the Dead. “That looks spot-on,” I said.

  “It’s a voodoo text, the spell used in it is not contagious, but gives us a hint of what we could be looking at.” He glanced at the book in front of Tyronios. “The first case of contagious zombism that spread to take over a world came at the same time as the wedding of Mother Earth and the shifter god, Felix.”

  Tyronios glanced at my ring. “What are you saying?” I asked Issa. “You think they have something to do with each other?”

  He nodded, his face grave. “It could be a coincidence. But the fact that your sister wants to destroy all humans implies that her mother might enjoy the zombie apocalypses.”

  “It does lower the human population,” I said. “In all the worlds that Emmanuel and I have visited where it’s long before or after the rise of the zombies, there are similarities. Sparsely populated. Not much technology.”

  “So no plastic clogging the ocean, coal plants pumping out smoke into the atmosphere, and miners blowing up mountains,” Megan said.

  “Not that I saw. Several didn’t even have electricity.”

  “The zombies give Mother Earth what she wants,” Megan said.

  “So why bother trying to kill Darling?” Dimitri asked, coming up behind Issa. “Why bother with taking out all the humans?”

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “What do they need Emmanuel for? They could just keep things going the way that they are with a similar outcome.”