14.
2772 Words
“Take him away!” Pitt ordered Gwen. “By air, go find Paul. Quick!”
Although not knowing exactly where to go, Gwen wasted no time and grabbed Rucker’s wrist. She led him with her into the moat at the back of the castle, then disappeared, under cover of the visitors who were all staring at us.
“Gwen will be fine. Don’t try anything,” Pitt ordered us in a low voice. “There are too many tourists, they won’t dare to attack us in front of them.”
I looked up at the railings erected around the monument, about fifty people were waiting for the first tour to start. They all seemed intrigued by our gathering and the semi-nudity of some of us. The outside temperature was around minus ten degrees.
“That’s exactly why you’re going to follow us peacefully,” said the vampire at the front of the line, in a deep and vibrant voice.
He had finer hearing than a bird of prey.
He walked towards us with a slow, domineering step. From his princely and arrogant walk, there was no doubt that he was the master of the Strigoi, the supreme vampire. In my imagination, he was an athletic and intimidating creature. In reality, it was quite the opposite. Short and frail, he had long brown hair pulled back that accentuated the paleness of his slender, bony face. His large, skinny fingers, which he kept crossed over his chest as he approached, seemed ready to snap on a single handshake. However, the malevolent aura he gave off dispelled any presumption of weakness concerning him, and his irises, as black as night, reinforced this. I had the impression that he was studying us all deeply and just meeting my gaze briefly made my discomfort even greater. This man was incredibly powerful, he acted on me like a magnet.
He stopped in front of us, less than two metres away, to consider Pitt intently.
“Petre, you know what I’m capable of. Let’s limit the damage and come with us inside.”
He accentuated his words with a wave of his hand towards the castle.
“That wasn’t my plan,” Pitt retorted.
Immediately, the vampire’s gaze lit up with a glow of amazement and satisfaction.
“You’ve become a brave man. But courage will not save you.”
“Courage may not save me, but my honour will,” Pitt replied, his voice clear and incisive. “Let them go.”
My honour. Coming from Pitt’s mouth, these two words echoed in my head in utter incomprehension. He was with us, but against me. Yet he had saved my life twice.
My gaze met Grigore’s. Neither he nor the two Council members appeared to have been mistreated. They weren’t constrained by the Strigoi and moved almost freely. I slowly closed and opened my eyelids in silent dialogue to let him know that Rucker was safe. He nodded discreetly, letting me know he got it, then tilted his head noticeably, frowning as if he wanted to know what was going on with Elgin. Grimly, I motioned to him no. Then I looked insistently on Rufus before looking at Grigore again, looking sad, so that he understood that Simon’s absence wasn’t normal. He instantly turns pale.
The master Strigoi turned to Grigore, Remus and Gabriel and addressed them.
“Your futile attempts to distract my attention were utterly ridiculous. I sensed your friends the minute they walked into this castle. All you have won is the death of one of your own.”
We were all surprised that he already knew about this, as it had just happened. He realized our astonishment, so he let out a mean laugh.
“You don’t know anything about me. I know everything, I see everything, and alas for you, the lessons that I taught your friend Petre a long time ago have not borne fruit. He should know, I never give up what is mine.”
“He’s not yours!” I exploded, letting out the fury that had swelled inside me.
The vampire turned his head in my direction to look at me.
“Of course he is!” he contradicts me with a calculating smile. “He took the life of one of my most loyal subjects, so I am taking his own to replace him.” The vampire studied me intently with a puzzled eye. “So, you’re the dark angel who killed her creator to become human again.”
Then he turned to his Strigoi, nodding his head up and down as he pursed his lips excessively to show them how much he admired me.
“She’s alive, my brothers. It’s a rare feat to recover humanity. Applaud! Come on, applaud!”
The Strigoi looked at each other without understanding.
“Applaud!” he ordered them in a deafening voice.
They complied softly, still unsure of what to do.
“Enough! Enough!” the vampire yelled almost immediately, wincing as if the noise was driving him mad.
And mad, he was. Mad, unstable, and dangerous.
“Where is he?” I cut short this unbearable masquerade.
The master Strigoi gazed at me as surprised as he was amused.
“Where did you put him?” I insisted without waiting for his answer.
He let out a laugh so light that I had to restrain myself so as not to take it away from him with a violent claw.
“Have we damaged him so much so that you don’t recognize him anymore?” he asked, directing his gaze beyond the castle.
“Not him! The werewolf, where did you keep him?”
“The werewolf?”
I felt the call of the wolf in the pit of my stomach, my kidneys, the blood boiling in my veins, my muscles expanding and stretching as if they were about to burst. I wanted to kill this vile and evil being. But even if I had been able to do it, I forbade myself to transform here, in front of all these people who had no idea what was playing out before their eyes, because my mutation would trigger a bloody confrontation.
“I haven’t the faintest idea who you’re talking about,” he added.
“Lie!” I yelled.
“I’m not lying, insolent child,” he scolded. “Know that when a Were sets foot here, we don’t kidnap him, we feed him to the Moroi!”
He waited a few seconds, then he burst out laughing when he saw my frightened look.
The others foolishly imitated him, having fun at my expense.
I barely heard them; I had focused on Grigore whose eyes were on me. What the master Strigoi had said was true, Grigore was trying to convey it to me. And I believed it. I hadn’t sensed Elgin anywhere and hadn’t spotted any clue that he was here at any point. The growing hope of knowing him alive somewhere was immediately overwhelmed by the reality: he would never have acted like this. He would never have left me without giving me a reason. Elgin was in trouble.
Suddenly, the supreme vampire raised his hand to order silence.
“No more laughing! We will continue this conversation inside and try to find a resolution.”
“There won’t be any resolution,” Gabriel warns. “We won’t give you what you want.”
“Then I’ll serve myself!” he thundered in a fit of hysterical anger.
It was then that the situation escalated. Grigore, Remus and Gabriel suddenly bent their legs and jumped over the crowd to join us. Immediately, we heard the oh! Of amazement from the crowd of tourists.
This burst of energy was fiercely greeted by the Strigoi. I catapulted myself back as the dark angels got ready to do battle.
“Stop!” their leader ordered in a loud and clear voice.
Immediately, the Strigoi horde moved back, stopping hostilities.
The supreme vampire pretended to release all the air in his lungs and slowly brought his palms together, in front of his face. Then he brought them to his chin as if he was thinking deeply about the situation.
“Let’s try to stay calm. We don’t need to put on a show in front of all these innocent people,” he pleaded sweetly when not being discovered only served his sole cause.
The Strigoi owed their longevity and tranquillity to their extreme discretion. Nothing could have been more upsetting than exposing their existence to the light of day. It would have been considerably difficult to control its effects. The more the minutes passed, the more tourists arrived.
“So, let us go peacefully,” Pitt warned. “And everything will be fine.”
The master Strigoi laughed softly, but this false joy hid an irritation, an annoyance.
“Very good. You are free to go. However, my friends with the enchanted wings, remember that no one ever escapes my wrath. You triggered my anger by violating my house and taking what was rightfully mine. I won’t let you get away with this, so is my honour as Strigoi, founding father of your kind whose weakness towards men makes me so ashamed. The Moroi will hunt you down. Go, my friends. Go, everyone. The hunt will only be more entertaining!”
Grigore positioned himself in front of the supreme vampire, animated with murderous energy that I had never seen in him before.
“What will you do if we kill them all, Traian?”
“Then I will lower my arms and make your people our equals. But it will take more than courage for you to defeat the Moroi!”
Grigore rose to his full height to face him with a determined gaze.
“We aren’t afraid, Traian.”
“You should be, poor fools, you should be!”
A worrisome smirk brightened up Grigore.
The next second, he got rid of the jacket and sweater he was wearing, immediately imitated by Remus and Gabriel.
They weren’t going to...
My silent question remained unanswered. Stunned, I felt Rufus lift me into the air from the back, his hands under my armpits, while my eyes were fixed on the crowd that could see us.
“You’ll pay!” yelled the supreme vampire, mad with rage. “You will pay for this low blow!”
In a few seconds, we were well above the tops of the tallest trees.
“Why did you do that?” I cried as Rufus rose vertically into the sky away from that cursed place.
I checked the expression on Rufus, Gabriel, and Remus’ faces, not one seemed to condemn Grigore’s decision.
“The Strigoi will have something to occupy themselves for a good while,” retorted Grigore who didn’t seem to want to elaborate on his choices. “Let’s hurry!”
The Strigoi would never manage to control all these tourists who, for some of them, were perhaps filming our unreal acrobatics or taking some pictures. We could have run away, the Strigoi wouldn’t have followed us. I was appalled to realize that they had shown more intelligence than us and that they would never have taken the risk of revealing themselves to the world so brutally.
Electric, our eyes met for a few seconds as we climbed higher and higher. Then something passed between us, a feeling of dazzling intensity that I was unable to describe and that made me want to cry. Without me being able to do anything to prevent it, a lump rose in my throat, threatening to burst into long sobs. Trembling, I brought both hands to my lips and tried to hold them back.
Suddenly I saw Grigore approach us, nodding to Rufus. The latter straightened up completely and, with a slow gesture, passed me into Grigore’s arms. I didn’t have the strength to protest. I let him pull me up to him so that we were almost facing. Silently, still flapping his wings, he studied my face for endless seconds, then suddenly hugged me, resting my cheek on the crook of his neck. Gently he wrapped his long fingers around my neck and slowly stroked it with his thumb. I could feel his mouth on my hair, his breath on my ear. He comforted me.
But he didn’t say anything.
Not a word.
Not a sound.
I had the impression that he had just opened the secret floodgates of my heart, and the dam I had carefully constructed not to c***k gave way. I found myself engulfed by the violence of my emotions. My chest was torn with pain, I clung brutally to his bare shoulders and, mouth against his collarbone, let out a cry of distress that had been held back for too long. Then I burst into tears. I cried for my anger, my rage, my hatred, my resentment against this life that did not spare us. I also cried for the joy and the peace that I had tasted and that I refused to lose.
Breathing sharply, Grigore tightened the pressure of his hand on my neck and pulled my head up to stare at him. His grey eyes looked hotter than molten metal, and his irises had taken on their shimmering, silvery hue.
“Please take that thing off!” he growled.
Before I reacted and understood what he was talking about, he had slipped his fingers under what was left of my sweater to tear off the rope holding the amulet. When it was done, he held it in his fist for a moment and seemed to be breathing normally again.
Grigore pulled himself together and frowned, in violent shock. He leaned forward and sniffed the scent of my skin under my ear. I shivered.
Then he straightened up, his mouth parted on a broken breath.
“I will find your soulmate,” he said, tightening his grip around my waist, his eyes in mine.
There were many things I doubted that morning, but of this, I was sure.
We found ourselves in the private jet no less than six hours later.
As the crow flies, reaching the hotel where Gwen, Paul and Rucker were waiting for us took barely thirty minutes. Then we had two taxis called to take us to the nearest shop, because while Rucker was wearing the clothes I brought him, Gwen only had my coat to hide her semi-nudity, and the others sported nude torsos that didn’t go unnoticed. Not to mention that I was in rags. We ended up returning to the airport in the middle of the afternoon.
Grigore, Rucker, Gwen and I were all sitting in the same area. Pitt, Gabriel, and Remus in the another, while Paul stayed aside. He had fulfilled his duty, he seemed not to be concerned with anything anymore.
My gaze flew over Gwen for a moment. She had hardly taken her hand away from Rucker’s since we had found them at the hotel. God knows I understood her. But as she brooded over him with genuine love, Rucker’s blue eyes rested on her expressionlessly. At that moment, he had completely withdrawn into himself and never seemed to want to break out of the protective shell he had created. Even I hadn’t yet dared to speak to him, to tell him how happy I was that he was alive, back with us. I would, but later when he was more at peace.
I turned my head to Gwen to observe her. The way she looked at him made her look like a wounded animal. Seeing his suffering exposed shook me beyond words. Three days. Three days and everything had changed.
We had all changed.
We solemnly avoided expressing the bottom of our thoughts on this half-failed mission, which had cost the life of a friend of ours and promised a catastrophic future. But the silence didn’t prevent questions from jostling in my mind: What was Elgin doing at the moment? Where was he? How was I going to find out the reason for his disappearance and manage to find him? How can we escape the Moroi? Why had I seen them and the others not?
Grigore never took his eyes off me. He was as lost as I was.
Exhausted from rehashing all these questions, I threw my head back to rest a little.
I closed my eyes and tried not to think of anything.
Just before I dozed off, one last thought crossed my mind: I still couldn’t understand why Pitt had saved my life. Twice.
- Writer
