«But the fact that the satanic hosts converted mortals and then the angels rescued them was the reason for a celestial war and violated human free will, for which a pact was established that stipulates that humans should choose in full awareness what path they want to go to. Neither side can take souls to the other by force, only exert influences.
“That's what Mikah said...” Ali reflected. “But what does the Gladius Dei have to do with my father?”
“Both the Children of the Night and the Redentto try to keep their members and their activity hidden to prevent the Lucis Bellatores from knowing of their existence and come to hunt them. Mikah not only fears that the violation of the Covenant will bring us a war but what, believe me, would be infinitely worse, the irrepressible apparition of Gladius Dei.
“Then this...” Ali held the badge aloft. “Does it mean they are already here? Why would they want my father?”
“No” Kaliel murmured thoughtfully. “They wouldn’t leave footprints and, certainly wouldn’t have set the house on fire, unless they dealt with a demonic entity...”
Kaliel remained silent for several minutes as he stared at the open books, as if they were going to reveal something else, something impossible to see with the naked eye.
“Your father was a priest, right?” he asked again to be sure.
“Yes, but many years ago”.
“I think your father had this badge because he himself belonged to the Gladius Dei” conjectured Kaliel with confidence.
“What?” Ali screamed in total disbelief. “That's impossible. Why is everyone given to invent crazy stories about my family's past without knowing anything about them?”
“But then, if neither the Gladius Dei nor the vampires burned the house...” pondered Kaliel to himself, ignoring her completely. “Who did it?” He turned to Ali: “Do you have any idea why your father abandoned habits?
“To marry my mother...”
“How romantic!” he said sarcastically. Then he returned to the serious tone. “No. There's something else...” Kaliel was going from one place to another looking through the books. “He was hiding something. Those amulets... That's it!” He said and hurriedly decided to a dusty shelf. “He was not just afraid... Your father had good reason to believe that the demonic hosts were looking for him”. The boy showed him the page of a book with the drawing of an object in the shape of a black plate. “This is an Onyx mirror: it repels the evil spirits and their attacks, which also implies that no spirit, sorcerer or medium can see you… You get it?”
Ali raised an eyebrow, confused.
“There was one of these stuck in every corner of your house. For some reason he did not want to be found” explained Kaliel.
“Maybe he just wanted to protect me...”
Kaliel thought for a moment.
“But you went out, you went to school. What about your father? Had he got a job?”
“He worked from home. He was a French translator”.
“Just what I imagined... He's a deserter”.
“A what?”
“A fugitive... Someone who escapes. A deserter. Nobody needs to flee to get married. You can be an inactive member, not hunt down demons and belong even to Gladius Dei. Your father escaped and that's why he did not want to be found...”
“Why?”
“That's the part that I do not understand...”
“Which one!?” Ali was losing patience. She, in fact, didn’t understand anything.
Kaliel turned around with a cold, calculating look.
“Why they didn’t simply kill him...” he said bluntly.
Ali felt a lump in her throat. She turned her gaze to the ground to prevent him from seeing her cry. However, he noticed it and crouched until he was at her eye´s level.
“We know they didn’t” he assured her. “Mikah knows”.
“And what else does he know?”
Kaliel twisted his lips in a bitter gesture.
“Everything, probably, but he won’t say anything”.
Drying her tears, Ali jumped to her feet.
“He'll have to tell me or I'll set fire to this place!”
“No”.
The same “no” that she had heard that night. Kaliel put a hand on her shoulder to stop her.
“Calm down and leave Mikah to me”.
Just at night, they found Mikah standing in front of the main altar of the cathedral. His hands were hidden in the pockets of his fine suit and he was contemplating the cross. The doors of the cathedral were closed and there was no one else but him and Sabrina, who stirred uneasily in her place. As they approached them, Ali noticed that Sabrina was talking to him in low tones and that she remained silent as soon as she was aware of their presence.
Without saying anything, Kaliel snatched the insignia from Ali's hands and placed it in front of Mikah's face in a meaningful way. But this one did not seem surprised.
“Gladius Dei” said in a monotone tone, recognizing it instantly.
“What does it mean? Why did his father have one?” Kaliel urged anxiously.
“And why should I know?” Mikah looked at him as if it was the most absurd question he had ever asked him.
“The Gladius Dei is jealously hidden, how could her father have gotten it?”
“In many ways” he answered and then addressed Ali as someone who is looking for a more serious person to talk to: “Your father had been dedicated for years to the priesthood…”
Mikah's words were interrupted by a sudden roar followed by darkness. The altar lights flickered and the flames of the candles flapped to the sound of an icy blast. Instinctively, all eyes went to the main doors just in time to see them open wide in a burst of thick black fog. The moonlight penetrated and silvered the way between the rows of seats. A man appeared dragging his black and red coat, followed by a retinue of shadowed figures. The heavy footsteps of his boots echoed metal throughout the room as dark smoke issued from them when they came into contact with the floor of the cathedral.
“Demons...” Sabrina leaned back as Mikah took a step forward.
“Darry” he said calmly, still with his hands clasped behind him.
A chill ran down Ali's back. With a slight movement, Kaliel hid her behind him.
“Darry?” Ali asked with a thin voice.
“Darry Darvill” whispered Kaliel. “The Prince of vampires”.
“We meet again, Mikael” greeted the man haughtily.
Mikah raised a hand and all the lights came on again, revealing Darry Darvill's fierce face and bloodshot eyes.
“No more games. You cannot enter here”.
“Neither you in my domains, sanctimonious. But you did it!” Bellowed the vampire chief. Then, after a moment of icy silence, he added what Mikah feared so much: “You broke the pact”.
“If you think about it, yours did it first...” Mikah objected without losing his composure. -I just adjusted the balance.
“The girl!” Darry pointed at Ali. “She murdered Mireya”.
“She is not part of us, we even knew it. And, as far as I know, yours were the ones who attacked her first. When they captured her and put her in your... how do you call it? Domains! Yes” said Mikah with contempt. “We just rescued it before your children broke the covenant. I don’t see why you come to complain...”
“Yours broke the pact. Here's the proof!” Darry exclaimed stepping to the side to reveal what was hidden behind him.
A young girl with her hands bound trembled between sobs. Darry threw her at Mikah's feet kicking her in the back and the girl moaned. Then he raised her dirty and beaten face and Ali recognized her.
“Annabeth!” Jared's voice echoed from the other side of the room and the young man ran to take her in his arms.
The rest watched the scene cautiously, fearing what was coming. And just as they suspected, Jared soon noticed that something was not right. He pinched Annabeth's cheeks and then rested his head on her chest, listening to her heart.
“What's
going on? What have they done to you?”
“Human” Darry said in a spectral voice.
“But... How?” It was the first time Ali saw Mikah lose his composure.
“I don’t know how, but yours did it! They made her human by force!” The vampire chief exclaimed and spat on the floor of the cathedral as he turned toward the door. Then, suddenly stopped and turned back to Mikah: “I think it is not necessary to clarify... This is war!”
8
The letter
The doors closed behind Darry Darvill with a thud and the lugubrious atmosphere disappeared with him. A tense silence gripped the main hall of Salisbury Cathedral.
Annabeth was still lying on the floor. Jared knelt next to her and gently untied her tightly bound hands. The girl winced and tried to sit up before the expectant eyes of everyone. She was no longer the same doll that Ali remembered; under all the blows, the wounds, the mud and her disheveled hair, she was still beautiful but now something was missing. It was something in her skin that had lost its shine or maybe in the color of her cheeks or, perhaps, in the bruises that surrounded her wrists, where the rope that had imprisoned them had been, and that now Annabeth was rubbing with a wince. Sure, it was that. She was fragile. The vampire had stopped being that indestructible doll to return to the world where the bones are corroded with time.
“You...” she murmured getting up suddenly. She hadn’t lost her tenacity or her murderous gaze- You did this to me!
Alanis didn’t understand what was happening but she wasn’t foolish enough not to notice that Annabeth was crouching. However, she was very slow. The girl saved the distance that separated them quickly and fell to her neck, no longer with her fangs but with her deadly hands. Fortunately, she had lost her supernatural strength; otherwise, it would have been the end for Ali. Annabeth tried to strangle her for a moment that seemed to Ali to never end.
“You'll join me in hell!” Annabeth's unhinged cries sounded like they were tearing at her throat. “Die!”
Jared intervened at that moment. He caught the girl in his iron arms and lifted her, lifting Ali with her, whom Annabeth still held by the neck. Alanis began to turn red. She felt that she was running out of breath and for a moment she thought she could die. It was then that she felt it again: that force that invaded her body and ran through her like lightning. With an angry impulse, she grabbed Annabeth's arm, whose skin began to emit wisps of smoke. The girl screamed as if she were burning but no fire appeared. It was only she writhing in pain and screaming, until at last her hands released Alanis' neck and she fell to the floor with a heavy blow.
“Take her away” Mikah ordered.
Ali saw from the ground as Annabeth writhed frantically to get rid of Jared and return to her attempt to kill her. Her eyes were even fiercer than when she was a vampire. But what surprised Ali most was the unwavering attitude of Mikah and the others. They remained still in their place as if nothing unusual had happened. Did not anyone care that Ali had been about to lose her life? Her eyes searched for the only one who had shown an interest in her safety up to now: Kaliel. But he wasn’t even looking at her. His eyes remained fixed on the nothingness away from some corner beyond her. However, she noticed that his fists were tensed at the sides of his body and that his posture was leaning slightly forward, as if he had been about to do something.
“You heard it” said Mikah with total serenity. He was not willing to let Darry scare them. “You take care of Annabeth” she said to Jared.
Ali wasn’t sure what he meant by that. Then, he addressed her: - you will not leave this place.
“What!?” She began to protest and immediately a hand took her by the arm. However, this time he did it gently.
“Choose: cell or tower” Kaliel said. His expression had been composed again and he had recovered his expressionless coolness but his hand still trembled.
“Let me go! I choose to leave!” Ali struggled to free herself. He wasn’t a vampire with iron arms; she could get rid of him. At least, that's what she believed. - I'll call the police! They will come for me! They will look for me everywhere because my father has surely told them! Let me go!
“Nobody will look for a dead person...” Mikah said.
Alanis was speechless.
“Come on...” Kaliel murmured.
Ali was still shocked as he led her up the stairs. With one hand he led her gently and carried the other hand in his pocket. Kaliel wasn’t taking any precautions: he was sure she couldn’t escape. Finally, they reached Kaliel's room. He didn’t force her anymore. As soon as Ali was inside, he closed the door but didn’t lock it in any way.
“How is that I'm dead?” Ali snapped.
“I told you that it would be better for everyone to believe that you are dead...”
Kaliel opened one of the windows and sat on the edge, one of his legs dangling into the void. She didn’t answer. Her ears didn’t believe what they heard or what her heart felt.
“And why would they believe it?”
“It's what I suspected. At the fire... Mikah gave the order to leave false leads. By all accounts, you are legally out of this world”. Kaliel crossed his arms while looking at the moon, indifferent.
“What did you do?” Ali wanted to know.
“It wasn’t me. I don’t follow Mikah's orders” he remarked with some petulance. “Maybe it was the bootlicker of Jared”.
Alanis didn’t say a word and Kaliel instinctively turned to see her. She was crying. She had collapsed on the floor and hugged her knees while whimpering almost silently. That strange feeling assaulted him again. The same one he had had the night at the alley when he heard her scream; the same thing he had felt minutes ago when the girl Darry had brought had tried to murder her and his legs had been stuck to the ground. It was a mix between the fear of not being able to do anything and knowing that, in reality, nothing can be done. Although this time there was something else: now he was afraid he was the cause. But what did all those things matter to him? The only important thing was to carry out his mission and his mission, which was to follow the girl, had become protected since Baaltazhar got in the game.
“I'm sorry” he just said it and lost his eyes again in the night sky.
“You saw him?” Ali asked between sobs. “Did you see Chase dead? When they rescued me from the vampire's lair...”
“You mean another human? There weren’t any other humans when we got there”.
“What am I saying? He would be looking for me...” she said to herself and wiped her new tears with the fist of her shirt. “Now I must find my father. That's all that matters…”
Alanis stood up again and went determined towards the table. After rummaging through books and papers she found what she was looking for: the last letter her father had received. She remembered how his face twitched as he read it and how much it had cost him to conceal when she appeared behind him. Ali read the sender in a whisper:
33 rue Saint-Charles
92101 Boulogne Billancourt, Hauts-de-Seine
France
She had no idea where that place was. Then she finally opened it and read aloud:
“They've come for Lucien. They already know it. The secret is in the blood.
They also know about you. Run away as soon as possible. Disappear from the All-seeing Eye.
Patrick.”
Kaliel turned around as if he had been slapped. His big green eyes were fixed on hers.
“Your father burned the house” he said.
9
Angels of stone
“This is absurd” Kaliel replied. It was morning and both walked stealthily through the trees that surrounded the backyard of the cathedral.
“Are you afraid that Mikah will get mad at you?” Ali had already understood how to manipulate the boy.
“I already told you that I don’t follow Mikah's orders” he replied irritably, as she expected. “It's absurd because you know it's not real”.
“No matter. I need to know what it fe
els like...”
Minutes later they arrived at destination: the cemetery of the city. It was a particularly cold and windy day. There were only a few leaves of the oak trees that fell easily at the slightest breeze. The floor was covered by a brown mattress. Many tombstones had been buried under the thick withered foliage but not the one Ali was looking for, since it was one of the newest.
It was a stone tablet, gray and common that read: «R.I.P. 1997- 2014 Alanis Emily Elliot ». Ali stopped in front of it. She couldn’t stop looking at it. A single tear rolled down her cheek as the wind that swirled her hair helped her hide it. The anguish over one's own death is not easy to describe. At least nobody who has felt it could have communicated it. If Alanis Emily Elliot was there, who would she be from now on? And if her father came to believe it, how would he feel? Did her friends already know? How is it that everyone had continued their lives perfectly without her? All those questions swirled in her head like the wind. Then she understood that she had come to the world alone and that she would also leave the same way. No matter how strong would be the affective bonds between two people, couples, friends, relatives, there really wasn’t something that tied them. Maybe the destination was pure chance. Maybe life was a lonely road and company, an illusion, only possible in such a small world. Now there was only one certainty: nobody would look for her.
“Someone is coming” Kaliel warned, always attentive as a cat lurking.
Alanis heard the footsteps creeping towards them and she didn’t resist. She followed Kaliel with her head down, trying to hide her face. When she was far enough away, she dared to turn around. Ali recognized Jess without difficulties. She was kneeling by Ali´s grave, ordering a vase of flowers. She thought about running up to her or shouting her name. Once Jess saw her there would be no turning back.
“What are you waiting for?” Kaliel's interruption chilled her.
Dark Temptation Page 6
