Darkling (11 page)

“I see you found your motivation.”

“Yeah, looks like it,” I replied.

“Running at 8 p.m.”

I made a face, and he smiled. Smiled?—Yes, actually smiled. Then he left the gym. I wondered where he went after our training sessions and what his duties were in the compound. Simona’s face flashed in front of my eyes—was she his girlfriend? I guessed that if she was, she would know that he was working with me, and there wouldn’t have been a need for those unpleasant questions of hers. So maybe she wasn’t—unfortunately for her. With long blonde hair and nice clothes, she was very pretty. Her pale face was soft and tender; however, her eyes reflected a vicious restlessness. She was a bit shorter than I, but delicate, with a bigger chest. A nicely packaged witch.

At breakfast, I saw some of my colleagues. They occupied two tables and I sat down next to Julia and Blake.

“Well, good morning. You don’t look as terrible as usual for this time of day.” Tibor was just Mr. Hilarious.

“I accepted my torture and my torturer.”

“How did it go last night?” Julia shoved me lightly.

“Okay.” Which was the truth, more or less.

“I heard you made a mess there.”

Everybody looked at Lyndon, then at me, waiting for an answer.

“An incident occurred, but everything’s fine now.”

I didn’t want to elaborate. What was this girl’s problem? And how could she possibly know what had happened the night before? I planted my gaze into my cereal bowl. It was easy to ignore their eager looks. I just gave them the same evasive treatment they’d given me before when I asked about Lyndon.

“So, would you guys mind if Blake and I asked for all of our psych tests?” I didn’t bother with the overture.

“I asked for them last year. But they refused, saying it was the invasion of privacy. Nika thinks that if we had your approval, they’d hand them over,” Blake added, with more finesse.

“Is that for your little project?” Lyndon asked.

“Yes.”

They looked at each other probably wondering about what was in each other’s tests.

“There’s also the option of stealing them . . . without your consent, I mean.” I challenged them, feeling the atmosphere change. All eyes were on me, which made me chuckle. And Blake’s clearly didn’t like my threatening them.

“I thought I’d never see this: a lamb turning into a wolf.”

Everybody laughed. However, there was something to Tibor’s remark—I was tired of feeling fear. I at least wanted to get to the point where fear was irrelevant, where I’d be in control of my own mind. Little by little I was beginning to believe more in my abilities while being less frightened by the abilities of others.

“Of course, all of the tests, as well as what we find, will be available to all of you. You are welcome to see our tests, too, just to prove our motives.” Blake returned to diplomacy, but their previous laughter had told me where we stood.

“I’m okay with
you
having my tests,” Lyndon said to him.

“Things I hide are not in there.” Tibor grinned.

“Of course you have my approval.” Julia smiled, and Max agreed with her.

“I’d like it that you inform us about your progress,” he added.

“Great. Tibor, could you talk to Gustavo about this when you have a chance?” Blake’s question surprised me. I still hadn’t met Gustavo and had wanted to take this opportunity to do so. I’d rarely seen him, and never in human company. Then it occurred to me that Tibor and he had been here for longest time, so he probably knew him best.

“See, it wasn’t that hard,” I whispered to Blake, and he poked my leg under the table.

“Very subtle,” he commented.

Later that day I had afternoon classes, so I took some time to stretch out on the couch and catch up with some reading. This time I would not disappoint Mr. Matthews. Chapter One seemed a good way to go.

While reading, I discovered the answer to my question about the concept of active and inactive Elders. There were five Elders, a Pentarchy. I had wrongly imagined that they were all men.

The very first of his race was Sango, which, in the African dialect of his point of origin, meant “God of thunder and lightning.” The second Elder was Udama, of Sumerian origin, from Mesopotamia. The third was Ixtab, pronounced “Esh tahb.” She bore the name of the Mayan Goddess of “suicide by rope,” which, for some reason for these folks, was an honorable way to go.

I had already knew the last two: Kyrill and Baldur. Kyrill came from the Byzantine Empire, and Baldur was from these parts—what a shocker, I thought cynically.

The noble families came from first offspring of the male Elders. Two families from Sango’s blood, then one per each of the other Elders—Udama, Kyrill and Baldur. Which came to five, but I remembered Matthews saying there were six noble families in the Council. Ixtab didn’t count because female vampires can’t bear any children. So, who was the head of the sixth family?

The next pages of the book covered wars, led among or against people. Humans, that is. Wars against humans were mainly caused by the Rogues—vampires who had originally been human and had been turned by other vampires. During the Middle Ages, there came a schism that divided the higher ranked vampires on the issue of the Rogues. While most vampires didn’t approve of the Rogues’ uncontrolled violence, they weren’t all in favor of the extinction of the Rogues—which was the implicit policy of some nobles. And all that led to the biblical phrases, “brother shall deliver up brother to death,” and “the most rotten fruit of all,” which, in this case, was the Holy weapon.

The Holy weapon was a well-kept secret, previously unknown to most vampires and preserved for the day when humanity would reach a pre-foreseen number and become a true threat to vampire communities. In the case of some sort of Crusade-type war being launched against them, vampires would have, as their defense, the Holy weapon. And the kicker was—this Holy weapon was the Vocati! What an irony. However, the weapon wasn’t actually used against humans, but against opponents within their own race, which seemed like a very human thing to do, keeping the whole history in mind. And it made me rethink the emphasis that the vamps liked to put on their higher morals.

Vocati were the dead who had been awakened by the hand of a Priest who knew the secret of the weapon. They should have been fed with human blood to ensure that they would become our deadly enemies. But the Priest gave them a significant amount of vampire blood, and let
Chrysiridia rhipheus
—the prettiest of the day moths—enter their bodies. This allowed the spirit, the body, and the mind to form into newly-risen creatures.

The
Chrysiridia rhipheus
moth was a rare species that still lived in Madagascar; locals called it
Lolonandriana
, or “the king’s
spirit
.” That’s why Vocati called the moth tattoo they each had on the back of their necks Lolo, meaning spirit. The Latin name
Vocati
means “called upon.”

With the help of this new form of mind and spirit, the Priest had created obedient Warriors who were faster and stronger than any vampire. He summoned four of them to attack the four noble families who were pro-extinction of the Rogues. Unskilled to fight these superior opponents, the vampire Warriors had fallen like flies. Unthinkable massacres had occurred. Four of the six noble families survived. Afterwards, Sango fell into a coma, probably from shock, though the book didn’t say why. Udama and Ixtab were killed, but since these Elders were immortals, they entered a form of slumber. And that was the answer to my question about active/inactive vampire Elders, and it comprised almost the entire book.

Later that night, I dreamed of the morose man from the hotel lobby. Even though I knew now that he was a killing machine, I couldn’t shake off the ache that I had felt in his eyes. Was that a trick? Or was it the silver Baldur and Blake had mentioned? In the dream, he sat at a table, all crooked and drained. In a small vase in front of him was a yellow flower. He sat like that for a very long time, waiting for somebody. And then I showed up, carrying the same yellow flower in my hand.

Chapter 7

The Trip

Over the next fortnight, I fell into a daily routine: early training (mostly running), then breakfast, classes, and then training again (strength and technique). The only visible difference over those two weeks was the three inches of new snow and a tiny bit of progress in my training. Well, I couldn’t expect too much. My lazy muscles needed the time to get in shape, but my acceptance of the torture empowered me—I no longer felt incapable.

Since I’d read the history book, Mr. Matthews gave me two more books, thinking I’d find them interesting, too. But they turned out to be quite boring and purely historical, spouting only facts and dates, no stories or legends, so I’d only flipped through one of them.

On the other hand, Psych classes got more dynamic. Besides the power point presentations that showed me some of the Vocati habits (which varied from one Vocati to another, displaying unreliable and, in my opinion, poor data on them), I received basic training regarding body language. That was fun, and made me think of the “micro expressions” that were the focus of that TV show,
Lie to Me
. I was told that later on it would increase in intensity, and I looked forward to mastering this knowledge! I would’ve loved to become a specialist who could read anyone at a glance. But of course, those were only my fantasies.

Time didn’t pass as quickly as one might have thought, considering all of those scheduled hours; however, my friendship with Doris made everything much better. That girl smelled like home to me, and her smile was a thousand suns in this arctic weather. One Saturday afternoon I had been waiting for her to join me as we had made plans to take a little trip. She had said it was a surprise, and that we weren’t going very far. At last, she texted me to come down.

Tyler was at the wheel, Mia was shotgun, and Doris was waiting for me in the back. They greeted me with the grins.

“I didn’t know it was a mass gathering again.”

“Don’t worry, Nika, a certain unpleasant male wasn’t invited.” She snuggled next to me, putting her arm through mine.

“I brought you something.” From her small travel bag she pulled a soft, yellow, wool sweater together with the matching gloves, scarf and a hat.

“To go with your boots,” she insisted pleasantly, and I smiled.

“Tyler, where are we actually going?” I asked.

“Doris didn’t tell you?”

“Keeping the best for last!” Doris said.

“We’re going thirty or so miles north to Lyngsalpene,” he said, revealing no other details. Doris had loyal friends.

Any place with “alpine” at the end made me think that it had to be somewhere like the Alps, and the yellow wool I’d been given was screaming snow activity. We arrived at the coast and took a ferry. As Tyler was getting something out of the trunk, I saw three small travel bags.

“What are the bags for?”

They all laughed.

“Arrangements include bed and breakfast,” Mia said.

“Everything you might need is in my bag.” Doris shoved me with her shoulder.

Not being a control freak, I swallowed.  “Well, I guess one needs a lot of creativity to survive in this place.”

“Says Ms. Berkeley.”

“I’m not a geek, if that’s what you’re implying. I like to party.”

“You don’t fit the profile.” Mia countered.

“A lot of strange things have happened recently.” I frowned.

“Ah, everywhere is good for a party if there are enough people. You know the saying: When in Rome . . . . ” Doris said.

“ . . . burn it?” Mia had an awkward sense of humor; it wouldn’t surprise me if Nero was the name of her family tree.

She and Tyler argued about the music most of the way. They were cute, which made me wonder if she had a boyfriend.

“How long have you and Aidan been together?” I asked Doris.

“Time is a dangerous thing to ask us about.” Her voice had a shy undercurrent. “I met him through Belun, long before we started to date. And we have been together for about a half a vampire’s year.”

Something in her voice and the way she averted her eyes told me not to insist further. This was odd; she was a very open person. But when I thought about it, she had showed a certain discomfort every time the subject turned to vampiric stuff. Maybe she didn’t like things that highlighted our differences. Doris liked to erase those barriers with me, which I liked, but my curiosity might have brought them straight back up.

“Everybody’s here.”

Three SUV’s were parked in front of us. I counted about ten people, some of them waved at us, and Tyler honked in return. Aidan approached first, opening the car door for Doris and me. I pulled on the sweater and gloves, but not the hat. Nobody was wearing one, so I put it in my pocket. It wasn’t that cold, plus the new yellow sweater was so warm that I didn’t need my coat, either. They were all wearing sweaters and fancy rubber boots.

Andrei Belun was coming towards us on a snowmobile. He wore a black sweater and his dark jeans were tucked into gray boots.

“We almost left without you,” he greeted us with a grin.

I still found that friendly smile of his unrealistic, even though his attitude toward me during training had changed. It was still hard to forget that anger and resentment in eyes. Nevertheless, every time he grinned, I felt something flutter in my stomach.

“Oh, yeah?” Doris grabbed onto his arm.

He looked at me and I felt warmth spread through me.

“All’s set. Find your partner. Let’s roll.” Aidan said, indicating the row of snowmobiles in front of us. Then I heard her voice.

“Shall we, my Dark Knight?”

Simona had reached us and she jumped on Belun’s snowmobile and wrapped her arms around his waist.

“Beautiful day for a ride,” she said, fixing her gaze on me. I really didn’t know what she found so beautiful about the weather. True, frogs were not falling from the sky and the view was clear, but it was cold and wet. Belun gave us a small smile and took off with the witch.