Prophecy: Child of Light (4 page)

Valentine’s eyes desired to roam back to the window. His senses begged him to reach out to her once more and feel her where she waited for him.

Waited for him?

He resisted the temptation to shake his head to clear it of such an idea.

It was just her blood calling him. He had been foolish to drink from her. She had strong blood, more powerful than he’d ever tasted, and it seemed to have a hold over him still. Even his sire’s blood hadn’t kept him under its thrall for so long. His sire’s blood had never shown him things like hers.

“Go, but return to the mansion before dawn. We will bring the child of the prophecy there and deal with her.” Kalinor’s voice roused him from his thoughts and he nodded in acceptance of the command.

Valentine watched his lord walking up the road to the mansion gates. When the group reached them, he looked up at the wall to his left.

“I must be insane. It’s the only answer.”

He crouched low, jumped with ease to the top of the fifteen-foot wall, and then slipped down into the darkness on the other side before any of the Caelestis guards could see him. He waited in the shadows as he pricked his head up, listening to the distant conversation between his family and hers. When an argument broke out, he ran silently across the damp grass to the wall of the mansion, using the inevitable scuffle as cover. He pressed his back flush against the wall and peered around it, watching his lord and the guardsmen as they walked the gravel path that led to the mansion.

He didn’t have much time.

Turning away, he slipped from shadow to shadow, moving towards the rear of the house. He scanned his surroundings as he approached the servant entrance of the old building and then peered inside to make sure he wasn’t going to alert anyone to his presence. When he didn’t pick up anything on his senses, he stepped inside. He closed his eyes and sniffed, trying to catch a sign of her in the scent-laden air.

His eyes moved to rest on a small stone spiral staircase that was heading upwards. The room he’d seen was on the second floor. Kalinor would draw the attention of the whole house when he asked for an audience with their master and if luck were with him tonight then the female vampire would remain safely in her room.

Sneaking up the stone steps, he sharpened his senses, attuning them to her blood so he could find her in amongst the other vampire signatures within the house. He paused briefly at the entrance to the first floor, reaching out with his senses to check if she was there and then moving on when he didn’t find a sign of her. Rounding the top step and walking out onto the second floor, he ducked inside a dark doorway as someone crossed the end of the hall in front of him. It was a wide corridor. The dull grey stone walls made it seem cold and the large wooden doors were grand in their style. They were evenly spaced with a wide enough distance between them to tell him that the rooms on this level were vast. It was clearly the level on which the elders and those of higher standing within the family slept.

Was she of high standing?

He closed his eyes and sniffed at the air, searching for a sign of her.

When he picked up her sweet scent, he began following it. The sound of rushing feet told him that Kalinor had made it into the mansion and that he had been correct. Everyone wanted to see why his family were here.

A voice at the back of his mind reminded him that he should be there also. He should be standing at his lord’s side, ready to execute any order given to him, rather than skulking through the shadows of his enemy’s home searching for one of them. It was wrong of him to be here. It was wrong of him to want to assist her.

Assist her of all things.

He stopped dead and turned around to face the stairwell he’d just exited. This was wrong. His loyalty was to his family. It was his duty to do as his lord wished and kill the female in order to end the prophecy.

But he couldn’t let her die. He couldn’t murder her as Kalinor commanded.

He’d seen in her eyes that she didn’t know, couldn’t know what she was a part of. Her blood had shown him things that he needed an explanation for, but he knew she wouldn’t be able to give him one. She didn’t know about any of it.

Turning back around, he forced himself to move forwards, continuing towards her door. He came to a halt outside one that was halfway along the corridor and looked at it. He could feel her on the other side.

Raising his hand, he closed his eyes and extended his senses past the barrier in front of him and into her room. He resisted the temptation to smile when he found her and instead lowered his hand until it came to rest on the handle. He took a deep breath.

He had to do this. He couldn’t let her die. As much as it pained him to go against his family and everything he’d known all his life, he had to go through with it and obey his instincts.

He turned the handle and eased the door open.

The room smelt like her. It was dark, lit only by a weak lamp that barely illuminated the bedside table it was sitting on and made no impact on the vast room. His eyes strayed to her. She was lying on the bed, curled up and sleeping.

It wasn’t too late to leave.

She stirred a little and her hair fell away from her face, revealing her neck. His eyes moved to the marks he’d placed on her not much more than two hours ago.

He had to go forwards. This was his fault and he had to be the one to rectify it. No, it was hers too. She should have remained in the mansion. He remembered her words. They didn’t let her hunt. They’d kept her hidden from the world and he was the one to expose her. Either he rescued her now, or the next time he’d see her face would be when he was executing her.

Shutting the door, he took a step towards her.

But the prophecy. He’d be damning his kin, his species. He’d be damning the world.

So why didn’t he feel as though he was doing that?

He looked down at her pale face as she slumbered on, unaware of his presence and what was happening downstairs.

She didn’t look dangerous but then looks could be deceiving. His eyes strayed to the marks on her neck again. Blood couldn’t lie. Blood was truthful. He’d seen it with his own two eyes. He had to help her.

Kneeling beside her, he removed a slim wooden box from his coat pocket and placed it carefully down on the bedside table. He slipped the latch free and lifted the lid to reveal its contents. He ran his fingers along the three phials of clear liquid, moved over the three phials of black liquid and finally stopped on the first of them. Removing it, he took up the syringe and punctured the lid of the phial with the needle. Drawing the liquid out, he held it up to the light and told himself one more time that he could still leave and do his duty.

He looked down at the female vampire where she was still sleeping.

He couldn’t let her die.

Edging closer to her, he slowly injected her in the neck. Her eyes opened briefly and then closed again as the drug began to take effect. Packing away the empty phial and syringe, he slipped the box back into his jacket and kept his senses locked on the world outside the door so no one could sneak up on him. He counted to ten in his head and then carefully lifted her left eyelid.

Nothing but black swirling liquid greeted him.

Pulling back the bed covers, he looked around the room in search of something for her to wear. There were clothes slung over the back of a chair. They were damp. They must have been the clothes she’d been wearing when he’d met her in the cemetery. He carried them to the window and touched the sill, smiling when he found it was damp too. Clearly she’d come back this way. Lifting the sash up, he took a deep breath of the cool night air as it filled the room. Now if anyone came in, they’d think she’d escaped again.

He threw the clothes over his arm and returned to the bed, looking down at the unconscious girl. He was going to have to do this quickly or someone was going to spot him. Gathering up the girl, he cradled her in his arms and walked to the door. He opened it a fraction and peered around it. The hallway was clear.

He slipped silently out and moved swiftly towards the staircase he’d arrived by, all the while listening for signs of anyone moving on this floor. He adjusted the girl in his arms as he began down the narrow stairwell and paused briefly at the entrance to the first floor. There was no sign of anyone in this section of the house. Kalinor must have drawn the attention of every member of the household except sleeping beauty.

He looked down at her. Her head was resting against his arm, her face soft and peaceful.

Sleeping beauty?

She was beautiful he supposed, and she was asleep, but it wasn’t like him to think such things, especially about a vampire from one of the other bloodlines. The last time he’d thought a vampire was beautiful was when he’d met the woman that had become his sire, but then he hadn’t known what she was, or that she was going to give him such a dark gift. She was gone now though, banished from their family for loving a Vehemens. It suited her somehow, to love one from the most violent bloodline. She had always been dark and deadly. A part of him wished that someone had caught her and brought her up in front of the Law Keepers for committing such a sin as dissolving the bloodlines.

He stared at the face of the girl he was holding. Did this girl match her bloodline’s namesake? She was beautiful, but was she heavenly? Surely, a creature with such a name could not destroy the world. She could destroy the darkness that was vampires though. A heavenly creature sent to kill those of Hell.

Rousing himself from his thoughts, he walked down the stairs to the ground floor. When he started towards the door, another one at the far end opened and he ducked back into the dark stairwell. He closed his eyes and listened. There were two of them. Females. They were talking about his family. Their abusive words didn’t bother him. He expected it from those of Caelestis, and it wasn’t as though the Aurorea spoke highly of them in return.

He could remember a time of peace between the houses, back when the truce had still been fresh, barely three centuries old. Now things were beginning to deteriorate again, and it would take a miracle to restore the harmony they had enjoyed for over four hundred years. It was the end of peace between Aurorea and Caelestis.

The girl in his arms was going to see to that.

As the voices trailed off and the footsteps drifted into the distance, he made for the door. He struggled to get it open without dropping the girl and then eased it shut behind him.

The darkness of the garden and the sweetness of the night air made him feel as though he’d gained freedom from an eternity of Hell rather than thrown himself into it. He was going to pay dearly if his family discovered what he’d done and he would have precious little time to complete his plan before they did. Kalinor had ordered him to be home by dawn, but he wouldn’t really expect him back tomorrow, or the next day. It was usual for him to be gone for more than a day, but if he were gone for more than three whole nights without leave to be absent that long, it would raise suspicion.

Running across the damp grass, he jumped the wall and landed with cat-like grace on the wet cobblestones on the other side. He looked down at the puddle in front of him that reflected nothing but cloud strewn sky and then ran towards the town.

He kept to the shadows as he made his way to a warehouse by the river. Pushing the heavy doors open, he stepped inside and carried the girl into a small room at the rear of the empty building. He placed her down gently along with her clothes and checked her eyes again. Still black.

It took a lot to knock out a vampire, and it had been a long time since he’d had to resort to such things, but he was glad that the toxin still worked. She would wake naturally if he left her for a day, her blood would quickly eradicate the poison, but he needed her awake now.

Removing the wooden box from his coat pocket, he took out one of the phials of clear liquid and the syringe. He filled it slowly and then bent over the girl and injected her.

He smoothed the hair from her face and then packed the syringe away and distanced himself from her. Watching her stir, he waited in silence for her to wake.

P
rophecy’s head throbbed. It felt heavy and dull, and it spun when she tried to open her eyes. The world seemed dark, as though she was looking at it through a black film. She pressed one hand to her head and the other to the floor to support herself as she tried to sit up. She tensed when she felt the cold stone underneath her fingertips. Her senses immediately sharpened to a pinpoint and she realised that she wasn’t in her bedroom any more, and she wasn’t alone.

She knew that scent.

She forced her head to clear while her senses screamed of the danger she was in. Her eyes sought him out and she backed away when she found he was standing not ten foot from her. He was watching her with the same critical look he’d had when they’d first met.

Her eyes darted about the room, searching for an avenue of escape, and then she closed them as her head ached painfully.

“It will wear off soon.”

The tone of his voice made her start. She hadn’t expected it to be so calm and gentle. There was a hint of something in it that made her relax, something that sounded a lot like concern.

She shook her head, trying to make it clear now. Whatever he’d given her, it had been powerful. She could still feel her blood trying to expunge it. What did he want with her? Hadn’t it been enough that his reaction to her blood had given her more questions than she could come up with answers for? Now he had abducted her and drugged her. What did he want with her? Was it something that he’d seen in her blood? He must have come to her house to kidnap her. He was either incredibly brave to enter the house of his enemy alone or incredibly stupid.

Her headache worsened and she cast him an angry look.

She couldn’t even tell where they were. It was a warehouse, but all warehouses looked very much the same didn’t they? How long had she been asleep? She’d read of poisons strong enough to knock out various demons and some of them could keep the victim unconscious up to three days.