The Lightning Vampyre

Me: Okay, so TeaTime left a review for 'A Tumble in the Hay' suggesting that I write a story for Eliás Svboda, an OC in my story Resurrected, who is the High Priest of Prague (yes a High Priest he's a man) and helps them defeat Kalona and Neferet. He also becomes Lenobia's mate in the later chapters. And I thought, why not?

He's a cool character, and his relations with Lenobia go far further back than she remembers. This is his story. Knock yourselves out! Suggestions for plot twists welcome! As are reviews!!! This won't make much sense unless you've read Resurrected, but in a nutshell, there's a profile for him below.

BTW, this hasn't been beta-ed, well part of it has but then I forgot to copy and paste the beta-ed version in and then I added bits so I have no idea what happened to the original, so sorry haha. Sorry Tsuki... I was really careful with my commas...

Character Profile

Name: Eliás Svboda

DOB: 19th November 1889

Marked: 1904

Changed: 1908

Appearance: 6ft2 tall, coppery-red hair, dark grey eyes.

Mark: Lightning bolts (not like Loren's, these are like real lightning strikes)

Affinity: Electrokinesis, generation and manipulation of electricity and electric fields.

Character Attributes: Eliás is at first well known for being a male with an extremely powerful affinity, and also for his acute intelligence, he has a photographic memory and a flawless logic. As such, he has little talent for the Arts and the Martial Arts like normal male vamps and is a vampyre research scientist, holding doctorates in Physics and Chemistry. Later, he is internationally known as the only male avatar of Nyx, the only man in a High Priestess' position. As a person he is ambitious, straight-forward and business-like. He is a rational man, although doesn't suffer fools full stop. Even though he appears stern at first, he is very well-meaning and kind. But his weakness is his fear of failure. And if I tell you too much more the story will lose its purpose... Here we go...

September 1908

Eliás Svboda was running like crazy, his footsteps echoing off the walls of the colossal hall while the speed roused his dark copper red hair through the air. Why did this House of Night have to be so big? Ah, right, because it was in one of the biggest castles in the world. Prague Castle, to be precise. Running in the halls wasn't exactly prohibited, in fact it was almost required, the five minute gap between lessons just wasn't enough for an Equestrian Studies lesson which was right on the other side of the campus from the dormitories.

He rather enjoyed Equestrian Studies, far more so than Martial Arts or Fencing, for which he had absolutely no talent whatsoever. Eliás was largely considered to be the most intelligent fledgling in the House, his photographic memory and near flawless logic meant that he waltzed through all of his classes with ease, and they had already earned him a place at the Univerzita Karlova v Praze, the Charles University of Prague to study Physics next year. They had been so impressed at interview that they had completely overlooked his being a vampyre fledgling, so keen to welcome him to their course that they had offered him the place unconditionally and offered to pay a fair fraction his tuition fees for the first three years. Of that, Eliás was eternally proud. He had always been an academic, not a warrior. But Equestrian Studies was a nice change, a happy medium between theory and practical.

Still, he hated running. For someone with a six foot two frame he was sure he should be able to run faster. These halls made him feel small at the best of times, like a peasant in a prince's home and like he should be giving everything more respect, this very fact almost slowing him down. He was in a prince's home, the King's home in fact. There's another confusing thing. The Prague House of Night was the only one where vampyres and humans cohabit. By day, it was the home of the Bohemian Sovereign, a bustling palace, and by night, it became a normal House of Night, run by an amazing, if not completely barmy High Priestess and a few marginally saner professors. Bursting out of the doors, Eliás sprinted towards the Riding School, all the King's horses and all the King's Horse Masters would not approve if he arrived late. Panting, he arrived in front of the grand brick stables (these horses were housed more generously than most people were) and joined the rest of the group.

Goddess he was sweltering and it was four in the morning!

Leóna, a Slovak girl with a tendency to become hyperactive if not kept occupied with some kind of sport, turned her frizzy blonde-haired head at her friend as he leant over to catch his breath and pressed his palms to his cheeks to try and disperse the heat. "Did you run a marathon between here and last lesson Eliás?"

"I don't know what you're talking about Leóna."

He managed to compose himself as the Horse Master, a kindly German vampyre called Friedrich showed them to their case study for today. Eliás had never fully understood why all Horse Masters and Mistresses were either German or Dutch. Friedrich didn't seem to worry about his little breathing episode. He knew enough about life to know exactly what had happened, without using intuition. He was at least 400 years old, but had a physical appearance of about forty, with dark eyes and honey-blond hair, the fringe of which was flicked back out of his face. He was tall and lithe, dressed in a white linen shirt, a thick waistcoat, jodphurs and knee-length boots, the faint wrinkles on his face just beginning to show the signs of age. He had been in charge of the Bohemian King's horses for the last three-hundred years at least, and had forgotten more about horses than any of them ever hoped to know.

"Right." Friedrich began, pulling the rug off the horse and throwing it over the door, "What can you tell me about this horse?"

Eliás walked into the stable and leant discreetly against the hayrack, his bare arms glad of the cool metal – he hated the heat that had been building up beneath his skin for days now, not just as he had been running. Friedrich gestured to the horse's conformation faults and they watched as he explained to them how the length of the humerus bone determines the horse's potential as a show-jumper or a dressage horse.

"Mr. Svboda, please show me the point of shoulder and its position in relation to the point of elbow?"

Eliás walked forward to the front end of the horse, whilst Friedrich swapped places with him. He pointed to the two points and explained that the point of shoulder was high and that the elbow was low, good for freedom of pace and snapping up over fences. He looked up to Friedrich for reassurance that he was right, even though he didn't really need it - Friedrich was just the kind of person from whom a simple nod could make you feel fiercely proud inside. Eliás watched as he leant against the hayrack where he had been. He suddenly froze where he was. As soon as Friedrich's skin made contact with the metal rack, his eyes flashed open and he jumped, howling in pain. All the students felt the shock hit us as he dropped to his knees, clutching at his chest.

"Friedrich are you alright what happened???" Leóna yelled, going to his side, while a few of the others ran to fetch the nurses.

And even as Eliás watched the professor shaking on the floor of that stable, his knees now buried in straw, he couldn't remove my hand from the horse's shoulder.

What...?

At dinner that morning...

Eliás' POV...

No... No not again...

I thought of that heat building up in my muscles, of all the things, of all the people that I had given static shocks to recently. For about a month now, anyone I touched I shocked. And I had been leaning against that metal hayrack... Although I could find no scientific explanation for why I seemed to be carrying more volts than National Grid, Houses of Night were equipped to teach the Arts, not the Sciences, I was sure there was a simple one. It was summer after all.

"They're at it again."

My fork paused halfway up to my mouth. Leóna's roommate Antonie pushed a section of her long shiny black hair over her shoulder with a minimal enthusiasm. Her line of vision passing straight over my right shoulder directly onto the professors' section of the dining hall. In most Houses of Night, the professors had their own dining hall, and with the capacity of this place I was surprised that in this one they didn't. They ate with everybody else, albeit with nicer arrangements, they got soft seats on their chairs. I looked over my shoulder, even though I didn't need too. I was pretty sure what Antonie was talking about, she'd mentioned it every mealtime at least for the past two weeks.

I saw immediately what she was looking at. Our Swordmaster Anděl, was sitting next to Friedrich, who, thank the Goddess, was now fine, both of them engaged in conversation with Lýdie, our Sociology Mistress. Anděl, true to his name, had an angelic appearance, light blond hair, baby blue eyes, his almost translucent skin seemed to glow in the low light of the chandelier above them. I almost scoffed to myself as Antonie was; it was the kind of appearance that had women swooning and men grinding whatever they had in their hands to dust with their knuckles in sheer jealousy. The only thing that stopped most other males from lynching him was his private demeanour, most professors were fairly informal in their rapport with us, Anděl's personality was kept away from us fledglings under lock and key.

Lýdie laughed and flicked a strand of her rose-blond hair out of her green eyes. All of the boys, including me, sometimes found themselves staring at her gormlessly, she was that beautiful. All of the girls giggled when she caught them doing it. Fortunately, touchwood, I had never been caught. One, it's rude to stare, two, I was more discreet. Unlike them, I had grown out of it by the Fifth Form, whereas, now in the Sixth Form, the others hadn't, so I had started to mock them along with the girls. I think Lýdie took it as a compliment. She was, despite being painfully shy, an extremely sweet person, to the point where you might think she was almost a fool. Whether this was a facade or whether this was simply how she came across, it wasn't accurate. You only had to see her shouting at the Third Formers to know that.

And here was the problem: Anděl and Lýdie shared a rather fervent mutual attraction, but, for some reason best known to themselves, and maybe, unbeknownst to them, also to Antonie, they never acted upon it. In the Sixth Form we were now actually taking bets as to how long it would take them to become a couple.

Antonie is a clever, witty, sarcastic, and slightly misanthropic girl of Romany origin. My dearest, and most cynical friend in this place and also a telepath. It's her Goddess-given affinity. Although she rather resents it, as she doesn't have full control over it yet, and powerful thoughts of people nearby sort of float into her head. Their sexual tension hasn't been doing her temper any good.

At the professors' table, Friedrich laughed as well, his large kind eyes darting quickly between his colleagues – maybe he was thinking the same thing that we were.

"Goddess, I wish they would just court, there's enough in their heads to supply a French postcard factory for a year." Antonie said disdainfully.

In 1908, there are only so many ways you can verbalise that kind of thing without being deemed crass, or without being wacked over the head by Leóna.

"Good morning!"

I grinned. "Johan, Milan, good morning."

The two boys that Antonie and I often referred to as our 'offspring', due to the fact that out of the five of us, Antonie and I, being slightly older, and good Lord, eons wiser, seemed to take on a parental responsibility for Johan and Milan, who had a combined mental age of nine. The former was a budding sportsman, particularly talented at hockey and cricket. Out of those combined years, Johan was six of the nine years. Milan was the rather pathetic three. He still drooled when a pretty girl passed him, and would come up with ridiculous plans to spy on them or freak them out. And then he wondered why they avoided him like the bubonic plague. Leóna seemed to alternate between us and them, depending usually on how much sugar she had consumed that day. In her more 'energetic' moments, she was worse than Milan, but after she had defeated everyone in the Martial Arts class, ridden three horses and exhausted all possibility of further exercise, her speech at least became intelligible.

The Johan and Milan plonked themselves down next to us and dived into the food, piling it onto their plates. "Morning Antonie." Johan managed to get in between mouthfuls.

"Morning." She said, not meeting either of their gazes, preferring to read the French newspaper in front of her instead.

I laughed. "Good luck." I told them, "You won't get a civil word out of her all day."

"Where's Leóna?"

I shrugged as I finished my mouthful. "Not a clue."

"Horsing maybe?" Milan asked.

"Unlikely, Friedrich's in here." I said.

"I'm here." Leóna's head of frizzy blonde hair bounced towards us and sat next to Milan. "Panic not."

"How's Friedrich?" I asked suddenly.

"He's alright now." She said, "Strange though. The nurses thought he'd been electrocuted."

I forced myself to swallow the food I had just posted into my mouth as my stomach descended into nausea.

Johan put his knife and fork down and leant forward, staring at Antonie, waving his hand before her face. "Hello? Are we on planet Earth today?"

"Get your hand out of my face Johan."

"It's the lovebirds again." I explained half-heartedly, taking another bite.

They glanced around at Anděl and Lýdie. "I propose a plan." Said Milan, "We lock them in a broom-cupboard and see how long it takes until he does the dirty... Ow!" he winced as Leóna's hand clipped him sharply around the ear.

"I'd give him fifteen minutes." I said, immediately dodging Leóna's hand.

"Hm..." Antonie flicked over the page of her newspaper with a finger, "I'd give him less."

Leóna pulled a face like she'd eaten something disgusting. "How can you say things like that?" she glanced at them, "Aw, I think they'd make a lovely couple, and they're so desperately in love..."

Antonie made a small noise that was supposed to imitate gagging, while Johan and Milan pulled odd faces. I wasn't about to admit that I agreed with her. I watched as Milan looked amongst us, a sly grin on his face.

"So..." he said, "All in favour of the cupboard idea?"

I had to raise my hand.

It was very difficult, in one of the largest castles in the world, to find a lockable place that was small enough to promote physical proximity for two, and that wasn't otherwise occupied by cleaning utensils, or even other couples. Needless to say, Milan had just the spot.

"I think you're mad Milan." I said, as I wondered into Milan's little game plan and took a look around.

"You said you were in favour."

"That doesn't mean that I want to share your detention."

I walked around the room – it was an old storeroom, which in castle terms meant it was the size of your average lecture theatre. Several unused desks and stacked-up chairs littered the place, as well as easels not yet unwrapped, and general ornamental rubbish that had been cleared out of the rooms, either because it was valuable or breakable.

"Milan." I leant against a spare desk. "Question." I said, "How exactly do you think you'll get them in here? At the same time? And then how will you lock them in?"

Mocking Milan's plan made this all the easier, as it highlighted enough flaws for him to abandon it all together.

He grinned inanely. "Already did. Sent 'em letters." He said, "From the other."

I glared. "Milan! They'll put you in the damn dungeons!"

"It's genius."

"It's suicide."

I began to regret that I had put my hand up, that I had thought that Milan was actually sane enough to just be joking. I really should know better.

Later that morning I felt so sorry for Anděl and Lýdie that I actually went to their pigeon holes to remove the letters Milan had planted, feeling ever more and more pissed off at him. It was funny as a joke over dinner, it would not be funny in motion, least of all for Milan. There weren't even proper curtains in that store room, it wouldn't keep the light out. Milan was an idiot. I reprimanded myself again and again for even beginning to think that it was funny in the first place, I was beginning to see that it wasn't funny, not in any context. Goddess I wanted to hit myself for my own stupidity I was so pissed. I began to feel hot again, my skin tingling. I rolled up the sleeve of my shirt to the cool air, which soothed it a little. What was wrong with me? As I marched, I noticed something. Everything around me, anything that was made of metal, was shaking. Like we were having a small Earth tremor, but the ground wasn't moving. I felt shivers up my spine, and more tingling as waves of what felt like electricity washed over me. I walked faster. I didn't want this – I didn't want to be the one that had hurt Friedrich, but something horrible was telling me it had been me. To think that I had a power was impossible, male vampyres had physical affinities, a department in which I was extremely lacking – please don't take that in the wrong way – I had my wit, my intelligence, but that was it. I clenched my jaw as I walked, wishing, to the end of the Earth, that it would stop. That someone was haunting me or the like.

I stopped outside the professors' lounge, the door to which was open. I began to search through each of their full pigeon holes, my eyes sharpened on the lookout for Milan's handwriting through this sickening feeling – as soon as this was done I was having an early night... I heard a feminine laugh, and froze. Silently, I tiptoed to the side of the door, so I could peer through the gap between the door and the wall on the hinge-side.

It was Anděl and Lýdie, he perched on the edge of a coffee table, she sitting cross-legged in a chair, both chatting fairly innocently with a cup of coffee – only professors were allowed coffee, shame really, I think they needed it more than we did - in front of a roaring fireplace. Damn it!!! Everything metal in there was shaking too! I went back to the pigeon holes and worked faster. My stomach sank and sank and I began to feel ill, my vision blurring, like the air around me was thick with waves. These waves pulsed inside me, through me, outside of me, emitting from my body like I was a radioactive chemical.

Even though I couldn't see inside the room from here, I could almost feel Lýdie looking around her at the metal objects quivering, a teaspoon falling off the table maybe.

"What's happening?" I heard her ask and I had to check again.

Through the crack I saw Anděl put his coffee cup down and look around warily, as warriors were taught to do. I briefly wondered whether or not my hair was standing on end, and prayed that they wouldn't notice me as I tried to keep lookout and search for the letters at the same time.

Anděl was first. He suddenly stopped, midsentence, as if only to quicken his breathing. Lýdie leant forward to ask him what was wrong, her eyes widening as she did so.

He leapt away from the table like it had bitten him on the backside. "Shit!" he exclaimed as what looked like pain launched itself through his muscles with vengeance. Anděl let out a small moan that was somewhere half between pain and... pleasure? What? Come to think of it, that's just what it looked like... But just how exactly do you go from normal to ridiculously horny in a matter of seconds? Without drinking blood, that is... This was far too weird even for my brain to deal with. Casually, he raised a leg onto a nearby spare chair to disguise the tightness in his trousers from Lýdie, who, it seemed, had been hit by the same thing. She looked uncomfortable, before getting up from her chair.

"I ought to go..." she said, turning to leave.

Anděl suddenly grabbed onto her wrist and pulled her back to him, holding her in a locked grip and kissed her hard.

I immediately turned away, my system shocked and my eyes forever blighted, trying desperately to ignore the goings-on inside the room. I searched through layers of essays and notes for Milan's letters with blurry eyes. Although I couldn't help but feel happy, ever since I first came here in the Third Form Anděl and Lýdie had wanted each other, but for never acted on it. I was still trying not to listen as things heated up, no matter how mature you were or tried to be, imagining your professors having sex was cringeful enough, let alone actually eavesdropping, even if it wasn't intentional. I breathed a sigh of relief as my vision finally began to clear and the clammy sensation in my skin subsided. I saw an envelope Milan's handwriting and removed it from the second pile.

And now I'm getting out of here!

R&R!