A Shade of Halloween

by Robin Todd

  “What if my captor is someone from a smaller clan? Could this be a takeover attempt of some sorts where they plan on using me as bait to force Ros to step down?”

  The more I thought about it, the more the possibility of it being true sank into my consciousness. Whatever the case was going to be, I knew I would handle it somehow. Ros and I had been through worse things over the years and those experiences gave me confidence because we always came out on top. I shifted my thoughts back to Selena. Everything I was going through paled in comparison to not knowing where she was or how she was doing. I wondered if she was freaking out about her powers or burning wherever she was down from lack of control. I wondered if she was thinking about me and trying desperately to come back to me. It would have been easier to deal with being apart from her if I had some form of closure. Knowing Trina was with her gave me some consolation but it wasn’t enough to ease my aching heart. Even Trina needed to be supervised. She was still in the process of mastering her abilities and controlling her urge to feed. I wanted to be there for both of them so bad. If Ros didn’t knock me out cold, I would have gone to Selena’s mum’s temple to try and figure things out - maybe there would be an ancient book or scroll on the art of magic that could explain where Selena went. I would have hijacked some of Ros’s witches and gotten them to try and find her, or maybe I would have gotten some witches of my own. Whatever the case, I hated not being able to do anything.

  “Why not try and reach her mind?”

  The thought came like a light bulb in my head. If I could reach Selena’s thoughts, then I could get her to tell me her location or glean it from our conversation. At least it would help ease my worry. I closed my eyes and concentrated hard. I searched the vast expanse of consciousness for strings of Selena’s grasp, but found nothing. It was impossible. There had to be something. If she was shutting me out, I’d still find her consciousness. I’d only hit a brick wall when I tried to access it. The fact that I was getting nothing at all was bad... very bad. It was either she was dead, or transported to a different lifetime like the spell her mum cast in 1889. Either case was not acceptable to me. I wanted my Selena back and safe - in this lifetime. I focused one more time and tried even harder. I paid attention to the littlest of details, making sure not to miss anything. After a while I felt hopeful again. I felt like I was getting closer to finding her thoughts and I zoned in on that energy, pushing harder and harder until the energy slowly began to coalesce. When I felt like I had almost reached something, I heard the clicking sound of the door opening. It completely shattered my concentration. My eyelids flung open and for the first time in a very long time, my eyes turned blood shot red from rage. That rage quickly turned to disbelief as I stared at the smirking face of the vampire standing in front of me.

  Chapter Ten

  Ryan’s POV

  I had barely completed one cycle of raising my eyebrows when another vampire stepped into the room.

  “What is this nonsense?” I roared.

  They didn’t reply. Instead, the other vampire raised his hand towards me and I saw a pistol pointed at me. For a moment, I thought the vampire holding the gun was insane. What on earth was a bullet supposed to do to me? Even humans knew it was useless to shoot a vampire. Was I supposed to be afraid? A bullet couldn’t even slow me down!

  “Is this a case of gross stupidity? “I wondered.

  I soon found out it wasn’t. The moment the bullet pierced through the skin on my shoulder, I knew it was made of pure silver. A biting feeling of agony spread through my entire body, numbing my right hand instantly. I let out a guttural scream of pain that came out as a deep sounding growl, bouncing off the walls like the wails of a wild animal in anguish. Blood instantly soaked the sleeve of my shirt and I found myself gritting my teeth.

  “Not so high and mighty anymore, are you, Ryan Soille?” The vampire sneered.

  “Are you out of your mind? What is this? A pathetic takeover attempt?” I barked back.

  I charged at them in anger, momentarily forgetting about the silver chain suspenders that kept me in place. I was quickly reminded of their presence by the biting pain in my wrists as my hands pulled against the silver metal. I immediately regretted my decision but that regret did not abate my anger.

  “Always so feisty.” The first vampire spoke.

  Another loud bang filled the air, signaling me of the second shot that was fired. This one was aimed at my leg and it hurt twice as much as the first. I took a deep breath and let out a suppressed grunt which did nothing to mask the pain I felt. I had no idea what was going on but I knew one thing for sure. These vampires weren’t messing around. They meant business, and were willing to break me apart piece by piece until I gave them what they wanted - whatever that was.

  I reminded myself that I was a Soille... and we never surrendered. Despite the fact that the silver bullets hurt like hell, I knew they weren’t going to kill me. All they managed to do was piss me the hell off.

  “Are you ready to have a conversation now?” The first vampire asked.

  “Go to blazes!” I spat. “As a member of Council you do realize that this is tantamount to treason. I will make sure...”

  “Oh shut it!” He interrupted me. “There will be no Council at the end of this.”

  The second vampire walked up to me and smiled in my face. It was disgusting. I pushed my head back and brought it down on his nose as hard as I could. The force smashed the bridge of his nose, causing blood to drip down his face.

  “Does Ros know you’re doing this?” I barked in anger.

  I didn’t need an answer to that. There was no way Ros would know about it and these idiots would still be standing. Whatever they were planning was bound to fail because they picked the wrong hostage. I was never going to negotiate with lowlife social climbers.

  The searing pain that erupted in my back took me unawares and forced me to scream out in anguish. The first vampire had gone around me and stabbed me with something that was certainly made of silver. Not only did I have to deal with the pain of the cut, I had to deal with the reaction silver brought. It felt like someone set my entire back area on fire because the idiot refused to take the object out of my skin.

  “I didn’t really expect you to cooperate. That’s why we came prepared.” The second vampire smirked.

  His enhanced healing had kicked in, stopping the bleeding in his nose. I continued to look at him in disbelief. How could he even think of doing something like this?

  “I’m going to ask you this once. If you refuse to tell me, I will get it out of you. Where is Rayna Bold?” He asked.

  The minute I heard Rayna’s name, I knew this was no takeover attempt. This was something bigger, darker and unimaginable. Why would these idiots want to know about Rayna’s location? No one went in search of a member of the first generation except...

  “Wait a minute. This might be a takeover after all. This is just on a much bigger stage.”

  “What do you think you are doing?” I asked in shock. “You’ll bring death on yourselves. You’ll bring death on all of us!”

  If these fools were planning what I thought they were, I had to stop them. This was madness. No one dared overthrow the first generation of vampires. It was simply impossible. They’d wipe out every last one of us and make a new generation if they as much as got wind of this.

  “Oh... I’m shivering.” The first vampire said sarcastically. “Why don’t you ask Nikolas Bordain what he thought of the Archibald stake when it went through his heart?”

  I was barely able to stop my eyes from widening in shock at the mention of the Archibald stake. It couldn’t be true. These idiots had to be lying. That was all this was. A carefully crafted lie to get me to talk. Did they really think I would fall for it?

  “You’re even more pathetic than I thought you were.” I spat.

  The first vampire turned to the second and pursed his lips.

  “You know what? I’m done with this. I told you it was useless
trying to get him to talk. Bring the witches in.” He ordered.

  Three young women walked into the room and stood in front of me. They had their eyes focused on my face, like they were searching for something. I knew what it was and I almost laughed at the ridiculousness of it. No number of witches could access my thoughts if I didn’t grant them access. That was vampire 101. I expected these idiots to know that but then again, I knew they were living up to their reputation of stupidity.

  “Let’s see how long you can keep them out.” The first vampire smirked.

  I was going to remind them that witches had human lifespans and I was prepared to keep them out until they died of old age but something caught my eye and made my blood freeze over in my veins. The first vampire pulled something out of a black pouch that he brought out of the drawer of one of the tables. I immediately recognized the inscriptions on the sharp object and couldn’t believe it. Right there in his hand was the Archibald stake. It was the only thing that could truly kill a vampire.

  “How in the world did such a carefully guarded weapon get into the hands of these idiots?” I wondered.

  “Did they really kill Nikolas Bordain with it?”

  “Are they going to kill me if I don’t tell them were Rayna is?”

  The questions continued to spin around in my head as the vampire took several haunting steps towards me. It was when I received the first cut from the lethal weapon that I realized what the witches had been brought in to do. The vampire was going to keep cutting me with the Archibald stake until I lost my concentration. That would force me to lose my hold on the barrier I had placed around my thoughts, giving the witches free access to the information they required.

  “No!” I screamed, as the Archibald stake made another incision in my chest.

  The pain was nothing like I had ever felt before. At this point, I knew I couldn’t hold on to my thoughts much longer. I had to reach out to the one person I knew could help me in a situation like this. Trying to contact Rayna would lead these idiots straight to her and it was the last thing I wanted. I let out scream after scream as the ancient stake cut more and more incisions in my body. It was hard to concentrate but I gave it my best shot. I was barely holding on to the barrier around my thoughts, with those annoying witches prodding deeper and deeper. My entire body was in turmoil and I knew I couldn’t take much more. Right before I felt the first witch break through the barrier, I made the connection I needed and screamed into his head as desperately as I could.

  “Ros! They’re going to kill me. V...”

  My concentration shattered into a million little pieces, as I felt the last cut from the ancient stake. My body finally became overwhelmed by the pain, and gave in. I felt myself falling into the darkness and there was nothing I could do to stop it. My eyelids slid closed and everything around me went deathly silent.

  Chapter Eleven

  Selena’s POV

  I smiled and did a double high five with Trina before walking into the study of the house we were. It meant the world to me that she was with me, and I was more than grateful to have her as my friend.

  “We need to come up with a plan that can take us out of here.” I said, as soon as we were in.

  “Great idea.” She replied. “I think since you brought us here in the first place, you’re the only one who can take us back. You just need to figure out how to do that. Since we’re sure that this is an exact replica of our city, it means your mum’s temple is out here somewhere. We just need to find it.”

  “How? Do we go into each house in the city and look? That will take forever.” I stated.

  “Yeah I know but if we make smart guesses...” Trina started, slamming her hands down on the wooden table in front of her.

  She was usually big on descriptive gestures, so seeing her hit the table while explaining her ‘smart guesses’ theory didn’t come as a surprise to me. What was out of the ordinary however, was the smooth shifting sound of that followed her last action. The wall opposite the table shifted, revealing a large black TV screen. Trina and I looked at each other, stunned for a few seconds. It wasn’t like we hadn’t seen embedded TVs before. Most modern homes had them. What surprised us was the location of the remote. The part of the table Trina pushed while trying to get up was what activated the TV. Regular embedded TVs had little devices for remotes, not secret table launchers. I walked to Trina and held her hand, while we both watched the black screen. It came to life almost immediately after emerging from the wall, and displayed what looked like a map of the city.

  “Cool!” Trina exclaimed. “Whose house is this?”

  “I have no idea.” I replied. “Maybe we should put it back the way it was.”

  “Are you kidding? Hell no! If this is a map of the city, we’re going to use it to our advantage.” Trina stated.

  “Okay. Do you have any idea how to use it?” I asked.

  Trina walked to the screen and poked it a few times.

  “Most of these screens are touch-enabled. There should be a way to input the information we want to search for.”

  Nothing happened.

  “Aargh!” She screamed in frustration.

  “Voice authentication failed. Will you like to try again, Mr. Zoe?” The automated voice prompt asked.

  “Of course. It requires authentication. Whoever owns this house must be some government security official or something. It’s very unlikely that they’ll leave a map of the city and who knows what other information is in there, unsecured.” I stated.

  Trina looked so cute with her defiant stance and pout, protesting the decision of an inanimate object.

  “Hey. look at the bright side. At least we’ve found a map. We can try typing commands instead of speaking. That way, we just might be able to find Sophia’s temple.” I encouraged.

  Trina typed a few generic commands and again, nothing happened. At this point, I got frustrated.

  “You know what? I’m done with this city. I can’t even find a simple temple!” I sighed.

  The air in front of us warped around itself, completely shocking us. We looked at each other with wide eyes, before looking back at the space in front of us. A couple of golden rings had formed around certain points on a web-like structure that looked very similar to the map of the city we saw on the TV screen.

  “Is this what I think it is?” Trina asked, taking a step forward.

  “What do you think it is?” I asked, completely confused. I had never seen anything like it before.

  The golden rings blinked around the points they were indicating, leaving me puzzled. Trina studied them for a while before speaking.

  “I think we should get an actual map of the city and see where those rings point to.”

  “That sounds like a good idea, but where do we find an actual map?” I asked.

  “There’s got to be a study somewhere in this house. Wait here, I’ll do a quick search.” She replied, dashing off shortly after. She returned almost immediately with a map in her hand.

  “Vampire speed has its perks, you know.” She smiled.

  “It sure does.” I smiled back.

  Trina laid the map on the wooden table and traced the point indicated by the first golden ring. There was a building marked “New Age Temple” right at that point.

  “This is what I think it is!” Trina exclaimed. “A locator spell!”

  “Hmm? A what? Cast by who?” I asked, still surprised at everything.

  “Listen, I’m not sure how this city works but this is what I know. We were brought here because you were in danger. Some freak force of nature attacked me outside and stopped because you asked it to. When I tried to feed on you, the city thought I was attacking you. Guess what happened? An unseen wind as strong as a tornado blew from nowhere and slammed me against a wall. Everything here is built to protect you, Selena. More importantly, everything here obeys you. It must have something to do with your sorceress nature. The power you have is greater than anything we can imagine.” Trina explained
, excitedly.

  “But the map didn’t work when I asked for directions.” I protested.

  “Yeah, that’s probably because magic can’t change programmed code.” She shrugged. “The map on the screen probably has a defined set of commands to make it work. If you know what those commands are and get Mr. Zoe to say them, I’m sure you’ll be able to do get directions.”

  “So you think the city gave me directions in the air?” I asked, looking at Trina skeptically.

  “I think when you were frustrated with our inability to locate the temple, you really wanted it to happen. That intention activated some kind of locator spell and voila! We have the location of four temples. This narrows our search a whole lot. All we need to do now is visit all four temples and figure out which one is Sophia’s.” She replied.

  “Wow. I feel like an all-powerful being now.” I grinned. “Guess you’re not the only ‘big, bad, something’ around here anymore.”

  Trina laughed.

  “You’re the most powerless ‘all-powerful-being’ I’ve ever met!”

  Her comment really cracked me up because I knew she was right. The only time I managed to get anything done was when I was upset, frustrated or depressed.

  “Why don’t we do something about that?” I grinned. “I’m sure we’ll find a few books or scrolls to help me in Sophia’s temple.”

  “Sure.” Trina grinned, wrapping her hand around my waist. “To Sophia’s temple and beyond!”

  I had barely started laughing when I felt the wind blowing fast across my face. Trina had begun her run, and we were off to the first temple on the map.

  Chapter Twelve

  Selena’s POV

  Sophia’s temple turned out to be the second one on the map. On our way to its location, we passed by the cathedral Ros took me on Halloween’s day, when he wanted to break my bones and spill my blood. Seeing the cathedral again sent chills of terror down my spine, regardless of the fact that I knew we were in an alternate replica of the city. It brought painful memories back to me and judging from the reassuring squeeze of my hand from Trina, I could tell she understood and empathized with the way I felt. Right from the moment we arrived at the door of the temple, I knew there was something special about the place. My body responded to it in unexplainable ways and I felt a surge of power coursing through my veins.