So, spirits didn’t have a will of their own, Ezzy thought a little sadly. What an afterlife that must be, wandering around, guiding people throughout life in order to make history the way the Otherworld wanted it. She shuddered and looked at her parents. They didn’t seem at all bothered by this, so Esmeralda didn’t know if she should be either.
“Okay, I get it, so you’re here and you’re supposed to help us…with what, exactly?” Antonio was leaning forward now, curiosity practically waltzing out of his eyes. Strangely, he reminded Esmeralda of a kitten.
Katheryn and Ignacio shared a look again. “The problem is—”
“—that we can’t tell you much—” Ignacio said.
“—without giving too much away,” Katheryn finished.
Damien sighed from his seat. “You know,” he commented, “this ‘finishing each other’s sentences’ bullshit is starting to get on my nerves. Kindly release my bonds so that I may leave.”
They all scowled at him, but it was Ignacio who said, “You are a part of this, just like all of us.”
Damien rolled his eyes. “Yes, yes, the fate of the world depends on all of us, blah, blah, whatever, but it’d be a kind gesture, on your part, if you could hurry this meeting along. I find this chair is rather uncomfortable.” As if to prove a point, he wriggled around in his chair, looking slightly comical.
Esmeralda thought she had never seen Damien this animated. Death seemed to have fared better with him than life ever did.
“Fate of the world?” Esmeralda asked, refocusing on the conversation at hand. “Is something going to happen to the world?” She immediately thought of the Blood Drug, and Rogues, set loose in the city, wreaking havoc. She suppressed a shudder.
Ignacio sighed and looked down at his opened palms. Ezzy noticed they were shaking. Then, slowly, Ignacio looked up, his yellow eyes glowing. “Yes,” he whispered. “And the fate of the world seems to revolve around your friend, Isis.”
Esmeralda remembered when Damien had kidnapped her and she woke up, only to be threatened by him. He had basically told her she belonged to him and that he’d change her into a vampire, unwillingly.
She remembered how she had felt back then, as if she were falling into a darkness that had swallowed her whole. It pressed hotly around her, scorching her skin, filling heat into her nostrils, making it hard for her to gasp for a breath. As if, somehow, her lungs had closed some sort of door, locking it, not daring to let the air come in, and then she was choking, gasping.
That’s how she felt at that moment; it was hard for her to catch her breath, as if her internal organs had shut down and refused to work because of what she had just heard. She shook her head, wanting to open her mouth and speak, to ask questions, but no sound came out, only a small puff of an exhale.
“What do you mean, ‘Isis’?” Antonio’s black eyes flashed red in fury and confusion.
“All we can tell you,” Katheryn drawled out in a way that would make one think that she was talking to a wounded puppy, so as not to frighten it or make it angry. “Is that something big is coming, we don’t even know what it is. All we know is that Isis is at the center of it, and you guys need to help her.”
“We also don’t have much time in Dreamland,” Ignacio stated, standing up, pulling Katheryn with him. “Just remember: find Isis, help her, and all that which you seek will fall into place.” As he said his last words of advice, something peculiar happened. His voice drained out, sounding more like a distant echo, than if he was standing only a foot away from them. His body became transparent, and flashed a couple of times, like a light bulb being turned on and off various times.
“Good luck,” Katheryn said. And then, they disappeared.
Ezzy and Antonio stood up and turned to look at Damien. His body was flashing as well, but he didn’t disappear. Esmeralda’s eyebrows shot up to her forehead and she wondered if Damien had a glitch.
“I cannot leave here unless you unbind me, brother,” he growled in frustration.
Esmeralda saw Antonio hesitate and she knew his fear. Her mom and dad were able to come into physical contact with him, who’s to say that once they freed Damien he wouldn’t attack?
But Esmeralda knew it was probably impossible. He had already been there too long, and she assumed that the glitching was a sign that the Otherworld needed them back. She placed her hand on Antonio’s arm. He looked at her briefly, sighed, and then the chair that bound Damien was gone.
Damien stopped glitching, and he was a whole person again, standing, rubbing his wrists. He smiled bitterly. “Next time make sure the iron isn’t so tight, I’d appreciate that.”
Antonio instinctively pushed Ezzy behind him; she peeked over the side to see Damien throw his twin brother a frustrated look.
“Antonio,” Damien said. “It’s true, something—on an astronomical scale—is happening and you two have to stop it.” His body began to glitch and glow. “And one last thing…” His voice was beginning to sound like that distant echo. “Remember the agent, Victoria Phillipe?”
Of course Esmeralda remembered Agent Phillipe. She was that tall pretty blonde that had helped them after Santiago Enterprises had begun to burn down and Rogues were set loose all over the place. She was the one Esmeralda told about the cure, and who had helped her throughout the whole legal process of things.
Esmeralda wondered what Victoria had to do with any of this.
Damien said one last thing before he faded back to the Otherworld. “Ask her to help you in your investigation.”
9
The blisters on her hands had healed, but the scratches on her face had not. The werewolf claws had sunk in deeply, and werewolf wounds were hard to heal. After losing pints of blood, the wound had sealed shut. Now, it was crusting over, throbbing and burning. Isis wished she had some ointment to ease the pain, but she supposed it’s what she deserved, for being so stupid, for thinking that she could escape.
She knew Caesareon, and she knew how he operated, and she cursed herself for not seeing it coming. She sat in the corner of the room, on the dusty floor, holding her hands in her lap, barely moving, barely breathing. The wolf was still there, at the foot of Caesareon’s bed, baring his teeth at her. What a good guard dog, she thought and then wondered how he was able to bring werewolves to his side. It was no secret that shifters and vampires had always been enemies. Maybe he was paying them large amounts of money, or he had promised them a special spot in society once he ‘ruled the world.’
Whatever the case was, it frightened her to know just how much power he had attained. If the werewolves were on his side, she wondered what other creatures were working with him in this plan. Were there demons? He told her that he needed her to lead his armies, but Isis felt like there was more to it than that. Something big was playing out, and she wanted to know what it was.
Isis’s eyes were weighing down with sleep, but she didn’t want to take that chance and fall asleep. If she closed her eyes, would the werewolf attack her? She did not want to risk it, she did not want to take that chance, but she couldn’t help herself. She found herself drifting…drifting.
“Isis, my dear, come here,”
Isis moved towards her Master. He was leaning against mountains of pillows, luxuriously dressed in thick robes that opened at the chest, revealing the hard muscles underneath. His eyes were only halfway opened, a smile played on his face.
Isis wanted to fight this pull towards him. When she looked at his dangerously beautiful face, all she could see was the face of that boy—of her brother—and think about how his life had bled away because of her fangs.
She hated this monster, as well as she was fascinated by him. There was something about him that was terribly horrendous and deadly; a mystery. He looked young, about twenty three, but when he spoke, the way he phrased things, it made him seem much, much older.
Her Master had explained the concept of what she had become to her. Vampire is what he called her; a creature of the night that had to drin
k only the blood of humans to survive. He told her to take pride in what she now was, that he had saved her from death, that vampires could never die and that she was one step closer to becoming a Goddess. Being a human meant weakness, is what he told her.
His hold on her gave her no choice but to believe him, no matter how deep her disbelief ran.
Isis wasn’t the only one he had given this speech to. There were others; other vampires like her that he claimed to have created. She recognized none of them. They were all pale faced and extremely beautiful, a quality that they all seemed to share. That and their eyes all seemed to glow the same angry red. It was a wild color, flickering and jumping, consuming their pupils, unlike their Master’s; his were a steady yellow, like the eyes of a rattlesnake.
And they were always hungry.
The others were there now, his other vampires, most of them women, sitting on pillows around him. Their bodies had been stripped bare, hardly covered up with anything but transparent cloths. Their long fingernails were raking over their Master’s chest, tracing invisible patterns and he seemed to be enjoying it.
Isis wondered if she was the only one who felt disgusted by him. Disgusted and tempted.
His tongue darted out, licking his bright red lips and he called to her again. “Isis, come sit with me.”
Slowly and cautiously, she walked forward, her legs moving by their own volition, recognizing automatically the sound of his voice and obeying it. She stood in front of him; a cream colored cloth was draped over her shoulders, belted at the waist with a golden cord. He tugged at the end of it and she fell onto his lap, her legs straddling him, the material sliding up to her thighs.
The other women moved back, silently hissing and glaring at Isis, as if it were somehow her fault that the Master seemed to prefer her as a pet. For all she cared, they could have him because she hated this man. Looking at him now, made her guts twist and rumble. She wanted to retch on him, to prove her distaste.
He gripped her waist, rubbing his thumbs against the thick fabric, smiling mischievously as he did so, as if he knew about the bone-deep hatred she felt for him. But then again, how couldn’t he know? He seemed to know everything about her, and didn’t hide the fact that he did.
“I have a gift for you,” he said.
I don’t want your gifts! She had the urge to say, but thought better of it. She swallowed and nodded. He smiled and snapped his fingers at a nearby vampire, a black haired girl with blood red eyes. She inclined her head in obedience before shooting Isis a cold stare and bounded out of the room then came back just as fast, holding what looked like rocks and sticks in her hands, carefully, as if they might break.
The vampire handed them to Caesareon who took them without thanking her. He opened the object in his hands and Isis realized it was a necklace; a necklace made up of string and black and gold stones. It was shiny and roughly textured at the same time, and it was beautiful.
Caesareon held it up to her neck. “I want you to wear it,” he said.
Isis looked down at it, positioned just beneath her collarbones, then looked back up into Caesareon’s eyes. They were sparkling that thick yellow color, bright, like a flame of a yellow fire. She could feel the jealous eyes of the other vampires around her and finally, she had grown sick of it.
Isis hadn’t asked to be Caesareon’s favorite. She hadn’t asked to be changed into what she was. She hadn’t asked to kill her family. Caesareon made all of those things happen himself, forcing her to be something that never in her life she thought she would be. A killer. A bloodthirsty killer that sucked her victims dry, with no control over her urges.
She looked Caesareon in the eyes, and could only see the face of her brother. Tilting her chin up defiantly, Isis said, “I will not accept this.” His smile faded into a frown, the whole room had gone silent. She could hear the vampires suck in a breath and hold it, waiting…
“You will refuse my gift?”
“Yes. I want nothing you have to offer me.” Isis made a move to stand, to remove herself from his hold but he had gripped her arm tightly in one hand, holding the necklace in the other. She tried pulling away from his iron grip, but the struggling only made it hurt more.
“You are foolish, Isis,” Caesareon murmured. “You dare disobey your Master?”
“I have no master…”
Caesareon wrapped his fingers around her neck and squeezed; the tips of his razor nails dug into her tender flesh, closing off her air supply. The calm demeanor had left his eyes; they now flared that deathly red, just like all of the rest, consuming his vision in a devil fire that turned the blood in her veins to ice.
With her hands, she clawed at his hand and then thought better of it. He was trying to kill her, and she didn’t even care. If he wanted her gone, she welcomed the idea of dying, she welcomed death. If it only meant that she would never hurt anyone she cared about again. Assuming she ever grew to care for anyone ever again. She closed her eyes, and waited for Caesareon to rip her throat out…
Instead, he released her, pushing her from his lap. She fell from him onto the ground, hitting her head on the hard floor. Gasping for breath, Isis sat up and put her hands against the spot he had touched. It was dripping in blood.
When she looked back up into his eyes, the red flare had diminished into yellow, his pupils had become mere slits and it was as if she could read exactly what he was thinking. ‘If I am going to kill you, I want to do it slowly, torturing you first.’
He stood up, still clutching the necklace in his hand. Without making a sound, he moved behind her and, without protest, she allowed him to place it around her neck, tying it in a strong knot. The coldness of the jewelry pressed against her, heavy; she swallowed the lump in her throat and pressed her fingers to the golden stones.
Caesareon’s voice whispered richly into her ear. “You do look beautiful in it, my little warrior.”
“I see you put up a struggle.” Caesareon slapped Isis’s cheeks lightly. She winced at the pain it caused on her wounds and rubbed her eyes, as if that could wipe away the memory of the dream she had just had. She was still lying in the corner and hadn’t realized she had fallen asleep until Caesareon had shaken her awake.
“I see you put up all and any means necessary to keep me trapped in here.” Isis yawned and stretched her hands over her head casually, trying to pretend that his presence didn’t bother her, though they both knew it did and she was kidding no one.
“Yes, necessary, as you said.” He leaned forward, his thick eyebrows pulled together tightly as he examined her wounds, brushing his thumbs across them so lightly Isis might have thought it was a feather. “You’ll be needing medication.” He finally decided, leaning back with a sigh.
“I could have figured that out on my own, thank you very much,” she muttered, avoiding his gaze.
“No one told you to try and escape your fate, Isis.” He said this the way someone might lecture a dog for biting him after torturing it. “You were always so stubborn, strange how you haven’t changed, even after all of these years…”
“You’re one to talk!” Isis spat back at him. “You raging douche!”
He let out a sound that sounded somewhat like a restrained chuckle. She looked up in semi-surprise. He was trying not to laugh? It was odd, since she was so used to seeing him so serious all of the damn time.
“What’s so funny?” Isis demanded.
“I just find it comical that you insult me in such a mundane way. It seems that your fraternizing with humans all of this time has made your vocabulary more atrocious than it used to be. Such a pity…” Shaking his head back and forth like he had just discovered a cosmic joke, Caesareon stood and clapped his hands together and changed the subject. “Now, we have to get you prepared. We will be very much occupied today.”
“Occupied with what?”
“First you need to be bathed, you smell like death, and then we must meet with the troops and tell them of our plans!”
“Okay.” I
sis stood up and dusted her hands off on her pants. “What plans, exactly?”
Caesareon smiled full fanged at her and held his hand out, beckoning her with his fingers. She stepped forward and placed her hand on his. He entwined their fingers together and gripped her tight. “I suppose you’ll have to wait and see now.”
“So what are we going to do?” Esmeralda hopped around on one foot, pulling on her Converse. Antonio was pulling on his own boots, tying them up in double knots, his curls falling into his eyes. He straightened out and slipped into his leather jacket, running a hand across his face.
“First, we need to go find Isis and talk to her.”
Esmeralda finished tying her shoes and reached for her own sweater, pulling her arms through it and zipped it up. She tied her hair into a ponytail and stared at him incredulously. “How do you suppose we find her? I’ve called her a bunch of times and it tells me she’s out of range each time.”
“That’s why we have to ask all of her friends if they’ve seen her recently,” he said in frustration. “We need to figure this out; we need to figure out what it is that’s going on!”
“Maybe we should call Agent Phillipe and ask her to help us.” Ezzy worried at her bottom lip. “I still have her number…”
Antonio thought about this for a moment then shook his head. “We don’t know the extent of the problem yet; we can’t drag the FBSI into this and inconvenience them. Plus, I wouldn’t trust anything Damien says.” And with that, he turned on his heel and marched out the front door, leaving Ezzy scurrying after him.
“But, maybe he’s right.” Ezzy caught up to him and looped her arm through his to keep up.
The night air was chilly, making Ezzy glad she had brought a sweatshirt. The sky was cloudy, blocking out the view of the stars and the moon, leaving nothing but lampposts illuminating the way down the street so that they could hail a cab.
My Master Page 6
