The Vampires Torment

The Threat That's Yet To Come

"It was you. You were the peacock man," she sighed as a light smell of lavender and woods enveloped him. The two had met in a different time. She often wondered where he had gone. Did he get married? How many children did he have, and how did he die? He didn’t die. The sad man with the peacock feathers was the one she had been searching for all along. “Did you find her?” she asked, but she found her eyes slowly getting heavy, and her body relaxing a little too much. Sleep was taking over her, but she fought to stay awake.

“Rest now. You almost died; you need to sleep. There’s more to come.” More to come—somehow the words made her heart heavy. He had avoided her question, and now there would be more left to do. She’d have to find the person behind it all and, on top of that, lift the blood oath. But there was that feeling again. A feeling that Sabrina had known all too well over the years. She’d spent years being her person that she hadn’t trusted it, even when it screamed at her like a banshee. She had almost lost her life as a result. But now, her mind wandered off to her coven and the fact that arrows were their trademark.

The Haron Coven wasn’t like the witch covens. For one, the coven was completely all-female. They lived at the edge of the downworld; at least it had felt like that for her. The place was barren with no trees; the villages surrounding them were mainly composed of sidewinder and Gopher shifters who had adapted to the harsh dry conditions. The only tree for miles was just one—the shrieking willow—that was just outside the dark metal doors of the Coven. The Willow tree was a treasure to them, a cursed object so potent with dark magic that even staring at it for too long would cause one to go mad. The tree had been dead since the beginning. The women and girls who lived in the coven were mostly orphans, cursed, virgins, or widowed—all women who came knocking at the door were given sanctuary in exchange for one important thing: their souls. They’d be taught the ways of the old and darkness; they’d train to use their looks and womanly charm to seduce, entice, deceive, and kill their enemies. Arrows were the main killing tools they used. She hated it, always preferred a sword, but it hadn’t been an option.

She had been hit by arrows before, more times than she could count. Once in a while, she was used as target practice when the elder sisters hadn’t been around. She knew the sting of it; she also could tell the sting that came from a blunt steel arrow and a rumac arrow—the coven's special set. Arrows that were light and shined like silver and quick, faster than a bullet. She had been hit by one, but the pain had been different this time—the pain had been too much. When the troll had removed the item from her chest, she knew it had been poisoned. But somehow, she survived thanks to Marcus.

She was now at the edge of consciousness and dreamland; she couldn’t fight it anymore, and with that, she fell asleep in Finn’s arms.

It took a while for Finn to notice that Sabrina had fallen asleep. Her heartbeat had gotten gentler as time passed; now it was a steady drumming noise that filled him with relief. She was okay, and she was alive. As much as he loved lying there by her side, her head laying gently on his shoulder, he needed to leave and attend to some things—one being to find out how the woman laying in his arms was connected to the bloody coven.

He found Marcus inside the vault. The Vault had proven to be a useful tool, as Marcus had said. He remembered hating the idea of the large, grotesque thing in his house, but, as always, the troll had been persuasive, a trait he shared closely with his mistress. Different combinations opened to different locations; there was his library, a storage room where they stored relics of their past adventures, a few hundred million gateways to different places, and Marcus's lab. The young troll was a genius but also fragile. Finn had to constantly remind himself that he wasn’t the only one who goes through this. It affected his servant too, sometimes more. The Vault door opened, revealing a large dimly lit stone pathway leading to the Lab. Rows upon rows of books towered almost 30 feet tall—brown column stones and, in between books, stretched up high. There were desks unevenly placed in the large circular hall, but there was also a large one in the middle. It had beakers and tubes. It also had small vials that contained liquids of every color: gold, black, red, and light fuchsia. There were also jars of specimens floating about the room—clearly some form of magic. There was a jar of lizard-like eyes, a large one with a snake, another with a severed human's leg, a toad, and other things that Finn couldn’t even recognize nor did he want to. They kept on moving within their jars, almost as if alive. There were five jars currently approaching him, all with eyes—some big, some small, and one with just a large blue eye in the middle. He held up his hand to try and shoo the repulsive things, but it only made them float higher and stare at him.

Marcus was laid on the large table, with jars, metals, ferns, and jars surrounding him. If he hadn’t had a book in his hand, he would have thought that his servant had decided to use himself as a test subject again—something he didn’t want to relive again, at least not after the chicken fiasco of the last time.

“I understand that magic and alchemy are a passion for you, but why the dead organs flying around? Don’t you get sick?” Finn asked as he shooed yet another floating jar away from his face. “They are experiments,” Marcus stated matter-of-factly, his eyes not leaving his book but a small smile playing on his lips. “They are a monstrosity, that’s what they are.” “Aren’t we considered monsters too?” he asked with a chuckle as he now placed his eyes on Finn. He wasn’t here to talk about this. “The house,” Finn began, “Did you do as I asked?” “Yes, I did. How is she?” “Asleep. She sounds okay. She’ll be better in a few days; I think she just needs some rest.” “That’s good. I was worried she might… I resurrected the garden. I’m sure she’d like to see it. Mistress always liked flowers. I found out a bit. I took a vial of her blood and tried to get into her memories. I couldn’t get much. But she was being guarded by a warlock, a powerful one.”

A warlock? Does she have someone? Had he been so blind that he hadn’t noticed that maybe her heart belonged to another? It was possible. The fact that she was a witch now was weird enough as it was, but now she had another. “They aren’t together, Master.” “I never asked that,” Finn snapped, hating it when

the troll did that. “No, but your face shows it. It’s Rafael and the shifter. They’ve been with her all this time. I don’t think Rafael knows. If I might have to guess, they would have known something was wrong by now.”

Of course, it was Rafael. Ever since they met the Halfling centuries ago, he’d always pop up at the right moment at the wrong time. To the rest of the downworld, Rafael was a trickster wanted by the highest and most dangerous of creatures. Yet Sabrina had had him serve her. “The house is supposed to be untraceable,” Finn spoke as he thought about it all. “It is,” Marcus said with a yawn as he stood up from the table, placed the book down, and stretched lazily. “But not for him; he was the one who made it after all. I’ll take my leave, Master. Tomorrow will be a bit busy with the guests we’ll be expecting.”

And with that, he walked towards the exit, passing by his master with a group of jars following him, only to hit something invisible, forcing the jars back. Finn just stood there, not moving. He was sure that something was about to happen. Things hadn’t been going the way they usually do. He hadn’t saved her from a horrible life or from s*****y or from any other life's inconveniences. Instead, she had found him. Without knowing it was him? If she really did remember the past and everything, then that would mean that she was faking it. Maybe she had other plans. Either way, he’ll be able to find out everything anyway, and quite soon at that.