Someone knocked on the door. I started, sending my pulse racing as I was wrenched back into the present.
‘Laura, it’s me. Package arrived for you.’ Kari’s melodic voice came from the living area.
A package? Who’d be sending me anything? Normally I would’ve heard her footfall on the stairs from the level below, but I’d been so engrossed in the journal entries, I hadn’t registered a thing.
‘Door’s unlocked. In here ... in the closet. Be out in a sec.’ I swept up the scattered diaries, deposited them back into the box and then into the trunk, which I slammed shut and locked again. I pocketed the key and pushed the trunk back under the bottom shelf. I wasn’t ready to share them with anyone ... yet.
‘How are you doing?’ Her pixie face appeared in the doorway.
I shot to my feet. I waved my hand indicating the contents of the closet. ‘Not sure. There’s a lot to pack away. I haven’t even started.’
The clothes would have to be moved to the storeroom. It was there that, over the centuries, Luc and his men stored all they had worn. It was a veritable costume designer’s dream. Hundreds of years old, many were still in excellent condition.
‘Let me know if you need a hand, okay? ’ Her eyes gazed at me sympathetically as she pulled a large bulging yellow envelope from beneath her arm. She held it out to me. ‘This came for you.’
‘Thanks, Kari. Maybe later, after I’ve sorted everything out.’ I took the package from her and examined it. ‘It’s from Mum. What could she be sending me?’
‘Open it and find out.’ In the blink of an eye, she’d made herself comfortable on the sofa and patted the spot beside her.
So much for privacy. Yet in a way I was glad she was here.
I drew the coffee table closer and spilled out the envelope’s contents.
Photographs in a range of sizes, black and white and colour, stared back at me. I’d never seen any of them before, and since Judy appeared in only a few, she must have been the one taking the photos. Many were my baby photos where Luc held me. Others were taken at my school sporting events, and in each, Luc appeared clearly in the background, yet I didn’t remember ever seeing him. There he was, smiling, leaning against a tree as a ten-year-old me kicked a ball around. And another where he sat in the bleachers near a bunch of boys as a teenage me made a home run for my high-school softball team’s grand final.
He’d been at my softball game? My breath left me even as a tender warmth spread through my chest. ‘I remember this.’ I stroked Luc’s face in the photo before I showed it to Kari. ‘Only because part of the stand collapsed and some boys were hurt. It made the local papers.’
Kari chuckled. ‘Luc caused that. I remember Judy telling me about it. She said the boys were making bets as to which of them would ... you know ... get lucky with you.’ She grinned and nudged me with her elbow. ‘So he upended their seats. Several rows it was.’
My jaw dropped just as I burst out laughing. I could enjoy picturing Luc doing something like that now without fear of unleashing a flood of tears. I’d been grieving his and Judy’s loss these last, nearly sixty days, and only now had the pain begun to lessen.
‘I always liked him, except in his hairy-scary moments. Don’t tell Jake I said that. He loved Luc like he was his own a son.’ She shrugged, her mouth crinkling up into a sad grin.
That I could understand. Jake had known Luc since he was a baby, and the countless experiences they’d shared over the centuries could not have created anything but a strong emotional bond. What about the other men? Had they felt the same? I recalled the way Terens referred to himself as “Uncle Terens” the night he’d found me in Timur’s fortress. ‘It’s all right. Uncle Terens is here,’ he’d said as I’d broken down in his arms, having narrowly escaped a horrific torture at Rasputin’s hands.
I shook off the memory as Kari dug into the package and withdrew a small faded-blue envelope. My name was written on the front. I recognised Judy’s handwriting. She held it out to me.
Embracing the sadness, I lovingly traced the outline of my name because she had written it.
The envelope contained a gold bracelet in the form of a coiled serpent. It looked old, very old. A Latin inscription ran along on the surface: “Serpens Sanguinus.”
Kari whistled. ‘Will you look at that!’
‘ “Serpens” means serpent, but ‘Sanguinus”?’ I looked at her, hoping she knew.
‘Mmmm ... my Latin never was very good.’ She tapped a finger against her chin. ‘Sanguin? Something to do with blood? That would make sense.’
As I turned it around in my hand, there was no tingle, no hint of anything magic about it. Unlike the serpent ring, it was simply a piece of antique jewellery.
I opened the letter. The scent of sugar and rose water drifted on the air, bringing back memories of rainy afternoons, a warm kitchen and Mum’s delicious chocolate croissants. My heart lurched. How I missed that simple time. It seemed an age away.
My dearest Laura,
Judy placed this bracelet into my safekeeping when you were brought to us as a baby. I’d forgotten all about it until I went through some old boxes and found it. It was around your wrist the day they brought you to us. You were sucking your tiny fingers and it looked so big on you. I know Judy was planning to give it to you herself, but you all left so suddenly that we both forgot about it. It had to be hidden, like they had to hide you, until the right time. From what I know, this bracelet can only be worn by the Bloodgifted and is passed down when the next one is born. I was told it once belonged to Luc’s sister.
I checked the bracelet more closely. It was constructed such that the coils could be expanded as the wearer’s wrist thickened. I slipped it on and tried to ignore the deep pang in my heart. I remembered the haunted look on Mum’s face, her eyes glistening as she confirmed all Judy had told me the night I learnt my strange heritage.
‘Wow! It’s as old as the guys.’ Kari rested her chin on my shoulder as her gaze scanned the letter.
‘That would make it nearly two thousand years old!’ Why did that vast stretch of time still surprise me? I should be used to vampire longevity by now. But it did explain the dents in the precious metal. Until Judy’s birth, all the Ingenii had been men, armed with swords, engaging in battle.
I continued reading.
As you now know, they had to tell everyone you had died, and that the Ingenii bangle was buried with you. Like you, it had to be hidden to keep the pretense. Judy was worried one of the chateau staff might accidentally find it, so they thought it’d be safer all round if it was hidden in our house.
‘Makes sense,’ Kari muttered.
‘Mmmm.’ I nodded. ‘They were right.’
My role and John’s is over, but Lolly, we’ve loved you as our own and never regretted taking you into our home. You have been our joy, our life and our consolation. I hope you are happy, as you deserve to be. Write soon and let us know when you’ll be coming home.
All my love,
Mum.
I swallowed back the tears.
‘Lolly?’ Kari glanced at me, eyes shining with mischief.
It’d been such a long time since anyone had called me that, and I had the feeling Kari was about to.
I sighed. ‘When I was little, I couldn’t pronounce “Laura.” It came out as “Lolly.” The name just stuck.’ I shrugged. ‘Mum occasionally calls me that at home.’ I missed hearing her call me that—another time, another world.
‘Lolly,’ she repeated. ‘I like it.’
I rolled my eyes and angled my wrist to get a better look at the inscription. ‘I’ll ask Alec about the inscription. He probably knows’. I was told the part he’d played in my protection, so he had to know the significance of the bangle.
I rubbed my chest at the now-familiar ache. My parents’ faces materialised in my mind, and again I heard Luc’s words so recently whispered to me in the dark, “Be happy, ma petite.” The ache eased.
‘Jake’d know. He’s been
there since the beginning.’ Kari’s eyes shone as she said it. Any excuse to see Jake and be near him, even if he didn’t return her affection. Poor Kari. She was hopelessly in love with him.
‘Maybe later. He’s in the lab with Alec, and this isn’t important enough to disturb them.’
She pursed her lips, crossed her arms and slunk back against the sofa, the very image of a petulant child.
I smiled and nudged her, my eyes briefly straying to the closet door and Judy’s hidden diaries. What more of her life would I discover within their pages?
Chapter 9 - Explosive Little Book
LAURA
‘Oh my stars!’ I said loudly. The last of my mother’s diaries sat open on my lap. It had taken several weeks, stealing time wherever possible, but I eventually got through them all.
I set the book aside, uncurled myself from the sofa and went to the window. It was good to stretch my legs. How many hours had I been lost in my mother’s world? When I’d sat down to read, the welcome weak winter sunshine had flooded the room, its beams striking the crystal chandelier drops and scattering rainbows across the stucco ceiling. Now, the shadows had lengthened, and a damp chill permeated the air.
I shivered.
As I gazed out at the expansive lawn and the line of bare-branched trees that hugged the drive, images of what I’d read jostled for attention in my mind, the words screaming from the page.
I confronted father. He denied nothing Luc had told me! Heaven’s above, not only did he know, but he’d married me off to that gangster to spite him! To continue the curse, to make Luc suffer!
Those lines, dated July 27th 1932, hit me the hardest. The more I learnt about my grandfather, the more I disliked him. Luc would have surely paid his gambling debts if he’d but asked. Who knows if all that had been a lie? How better to get back at Luc but to emotionally blackmail his daughter—the next Ingenii—into marrying a beast of a man, a criminal. And for what? For being one of the Bloodgifted?
Wicked man!
It explained why my grandfather had never been welcome in our home, and why I’d rarely been allowed to see him. Dad must have known.
My hands shook with rage, and I had to remind myself it was all now in the past, and my mother did have her revenge. Her written words were burned into my brain.
In anger, I did something a daughter should never do – I struck my father ... He raised his hand as if to strike me back when Luc stormed into the room and threatened him. “Touch her and I’ll kill you.” That moment I knew who the true monster was, and it wasn’t Luc.
That day, she’d left her husband and moved in with Luc. For days afterwards, the pages in her diary were filled with drawings of hearts and flowers, little snippets of poetry and the remnants of a dried rose.
My mother had found happiness.
Although they’d made personal vows to each other, I knew they weren’t officially married until I was born—in a secret ceremony attended only by Luc’s men. My parents had defied the moral conventions of the day by living openly with each other. I smiled as I remembered what she’d written:
Let society frown and censure. Nor do I care the Ladies League calls me an immoral, adulterous woman for leaving my husband. The real sin lies in society’s hypocrisy.
Her courage filled me with pride. They would have moved back here at the time, if not for my grandfather, who refused to leave Sydney. Luc could have lived on the blood vials—as Judy had not yet reached her coming-of-age—but that would have revealed the existence of the bloodvault, for how could the Princeps daywalk and maintain his power without the Ingenii?
I glanced back at the brown leather diary on the sofa. It wasn’t Judy’s latest one, but it contained more than just her personal thoughts. In it, she’d recorded the names of her first husband’s financial contacts—individuals and groups on his crooked payroll. Among them, names of prominent businessmen, companies, even policemen and local politicians. She’d threatened to reveal all unless he granted her a divorce, citing himself as the culpable party.
It had worked. Otherwise, as she wrote, Luc would’ve killed him, and she didn’t want,
... that gangster’s dirty blood on his hands.
But that wasn’t all.
In one of her last entries, Judy had added an intriguing line mentioning the existence of another book, in which she’d recorded the names of all humans, including governments and well known politicians, who knew of the existence of Brethren throughout the world, and all the favours they owed Luc.
A black list!
My mind spun, imagining if this book fell into the wrong hands. Had she done it as some kind of insurance to guard against a threat against Luc?
But where was it? Not here among the others, as I’d read them all, and the trunk was empty. Did it have a hidden compartment? I checked for a false bottom, tapped along its sides, back and front; pressed every button and indentation. Either it was incredibly cleverly concealed or it was just an ordinary old trunk with no secrets.
I sighed and gathering all the diaries, stacked them back in and closed the lid.
Only one diary I left out—the one mentioning this other mysterious book.
I re-read it, but there was no further information as I flicked the pages, except on the inside back cover where she’d drawn a symbol: the D’Antonville crest—of two serpents alongside a sword—above the image of an open book followed by the words, behind the precious pearl.
What the heck did that mean?
I copied the symbol onto a piece of scrap paper then locked away the diary with its other companions and pushed the trunk well back, against the closet wall. For extra protection, I covered it with a shawl and a pile of sweaters.
‘That should do. Now to find that book.’
Since Alec would probably be stuck in the lab with Jake for a little longer, I figured I’d have the time to go hunting.
It was already early evening as I exited the closet. I switched on the lights and called Kari.
Chapter 10 – Too Long Apart
LAURA
‘I know this is the family crest, but what does this open book mean?’ I handed Kari the slip of paper on which I’d hastily scribbled the image from my mother’s diary.
She snuggled next to me on the sofa, her jean-clad legs tucked into green suede boots with heels I could only dream of wearing without toppling over.
‘Library.’ She handed back the note. ‘Where’d you see it?’
I explained.
Her Nordic-blonde brows shot skywards. ‘Never knew she kept a diary. And all that’s in it? Dynamite! I wonder if Luc knew and ...’ she drew her teeth along her bottom lip, ‘if Princi does.’
I shrugged. ‘No idea. You’re the first to know.’ I’d even kept it from Alec all these weeks, not wanting to bother him with something that may not have been important.
Kari beamed. ‘You mean, not even Princi knows?’ When I shook my head, her eyes widened. ‘It’s hot stuff, Laura. You gotta tell him.’
‘I know, but I was thinking, what if we find it first ... check and see what exactly’s written in it. Alec’s got enough on his plate right now without adding more.’
I recalled the disappointed expression on Alec’s face when Kari and I had wandered into the booby-trapped tunnels in search of him the last time we thought we’d had important information. It wasn’t, and we’d nearly got ourselves killed.
‘I’d rather hand him the physical proof, not just some lines from a diary saying the existence of a supposed black list.’ And if it was in the library downstairs, then, hopefully, it wouldn’t take us long to find. I tapped her on the boot and rose to go. ‘C’mon, let’s see where she’s hidden it.’
‘You’re going to freeze like that.’
I looked down at my long-sleeved woollen tunic, velvet pants and black boots. Plus, the chateau had central heating. ‘But it’s only downstairs.’
Kari shook her head. ‘Village library. Just about every building there has our crest ...
well, the older ones do.’
‘Why would she hide it there?’ Extra security in case the chateau’s defenses were ever breached? Possible.
She shot to her feet, eyes gleaming. ‘Dunno. Let’s find out. Wanna go? I’m sick of being cooped up and not being able to daywalk. Can’t wait till the days of mourning are up.’ When I hesitated, her eyes widened, and she slapped her forehead. ‘Sorry, sorry, Laura. I didn’t mean how that sounded. I can be so dumb sometimes.’
She thought she’d offended me. ‘It’s okay, Kari. Really. I understand.’
She grinned and flopped down on the sofa. ‘It’s only the village; it’s not like we’re going to Lyon or Avignon.’
It was so tempting. I’d gotten to know all the estate’s housing, fields and woodlands in my daily walks, but in all this time, I hadn’t gone beyond its boundary walls. Sabine did all the shopping and postal collection.
To see the village ... get to meet the people, only a few of whom I’d met at the funeral. ‘Okay, but I’ll have to let Alec know.’
He was now the keeper of the green serpent ward ring, which shielded the chateau’s grounds. Like an invisible force field, it kept out the Brethren. Being part human, I could travel through it, but not Kari: not any vampire. They needed Alec’s permission to enter or leave.
Kari sprung from the sofa and clapped her hands.
‘You going in those?’ I pointed to her boots. They had the most incredible diamond stiletto heels. I was amazed that she could stand, let alone walk, in such high needle-pointed things. If it’d been me, I would’ve broken an ankle just trying them on.
She smiled and spun around on one of the heels. ‘I can walk anywhere in these, even run if I have to. They’re like slippers.’
I shook my head marveling at her, then strode to the window overlooking the courtyard and fixed my gaze on the whitewashed cottage Alec and Jake had turned into their lab. Apart from a sky full of stars, and a few shining lanterns in the courtyard, it was dark. Why were their shutters closed? I knew they were in there. I could hear them. Since I had developed vampire hearing, we stopped using the telepathic powers of the serpent rings. There was no need. We could talk to each other anywhere on the estate within a two-kilometre radius.
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