Chapter 1 : Kara
« Kara, do you want to sit nearthe window ? » My mother asked kindly.
I nodded with a smile and I settled near the porthole while my mum finished to shove our traps in the compartment above us.
My father and one of my brothers were installed behind us and my two others brothers sat on the other side of the plane. They were bickering about the movie they wanted to watch.
My mother snorted after them and they calmed down.
"Nervous ?" she asked, finally sitting on the seat by my side.
I knew she wasn't talking about the next six hours of flight.
"I lived that before... third times !" I said, shrugging.
« It's not the same when you're sitting comfortably far away !" Whispered my brother Kenneth from his seat beside me.
He had approached his face and hissed between the both seats of my mother and I.
"When you're in front of the Door, you can feel the power. You feel it throbbing through your bones !"
« Kenny, stop scaring your sister ! » my father scolded.
He was always very protective with me, his only daughter. His latest child.
"I'm more worried about walking on my dress and falling in front of everybody than being in front of this old door !" I said over my shoulder.
"Don't talk like this, Kara !" My mother reproved.
She didn't like when I was talking about our "legacy" with such flippancy.
It was one of our favorite fights.
I slipped the remonstrance thanks to a flight attendance's haste who asked my mother about her comfort.
After a grin and few words with the flight attendant, my mum came back to me.
"This old door, as you said, saved our lives by the past." she said.
I didn't answer. I knew the story by heart.
One thousand five years ago, my people went through this door to run away from a world where they were at war with creature named faeries.
Since, we upirs, we guarded the door. Each year, during the Ceremony, the young people who celebrates its eighteenth birthday in the year came to swear, in front of that door and all our people, that we will protect it and give its lives to keep it closed.
My three older brothers, Kyle, Kevin and Kenneth, swore before me and, this year, it was my turn.
Two months ago, I had turned eighteen.
My people was very attached with traditions. Very soon, the elders taught to the youngers the story of our people, the languages of the old world and the particularities of our nature.
Therefore, each holidays, to our great despair, my brothers and I were sent in camps with our fellows companions.
With our bloody nature, I could understand the need to learn self control and to master our appetites.
Indeed, the upirs drank human blood. But, contrary to the legends, it was badly seen to kill humans.
So we were taught to use the glamour, an magical hypsnosis that we used to cover our tracks.
Nevertheless, the humans knew. Unconsciously, yes. But they knew.
All you had to do was to read all this stories about vampires to understand that the humans felt our presence amongst them.
They saw us like ennemies, predators. And they weren't entirely wrong.
We were predators, except that the humans weren't our quarry.
Faeries were.
Well, before.
When we crossed the Door, we found out that our new wolrd was magicless and faerieless.
No one fae around. So we had to adapt our diet.
The elders found a substitute to the blood thirst and our people had survived.
Now, only the younger ones still drank human blood. And eventually, at adulthood, we came up to dispense with it.
Like my parents.
My mum glanced to my father.
"Kenneth, sweetheart, come sit next to your sister. You could talk to her about your experience."
My brother was smart enough to not contradict her. He just switched with her and he rolled his eyes to my attention when he was sure that she didn't look anymore.
My parents were like that. Unable to be apart more than five minutes.
Soulmates.
The plane started to move.
I look by the window, in a hurry to fly in the clouds.
Upirs was few. Barely thousand around the world.
But they were all here tonight, gathered in a huge circular hall, with, in the middle of it, the black stoned Door in front of which I was about to swear.
Several years ago, the upir community had bought an isolated land in the mountains of Alaska. A big hotel had been built and the Door, which were originally located in middle east, were moved in the biggest secret.
Nervous, I was waiting offstage that our leader, Degdan, the oldest upir of our community ended his speech and called my name.
We were five to be introduced tonight. Three boys and two girls.
"I love your dress. It's that Dior ?" asked the other happy chosen one in a pronounced australian accent.
I nodded and congratulated her for the blue siren gown which shaped perfectly her beautiful body.
For my part, I had chosen a shirtless black satin gown. Grey pearls were stitched on my strapless and cascaded down my hips like stars.
The dress was supposed to figure a summer night sky.
Around my neck, a thick necklace in black and grey stones finished the job.
With my black hairs graciously gathered in a bun on the back side of my head, I embodied the dark beauty of the upir people.
Because the upirs was beautiful. It was a part of the package.
We have been made to hunt, seduce and tempt the faeries stupid enough to come close.
Of course, with time, we evolved and our beauty wasn't used to devour our quarry but rather to fit into the human world and ensure a pleasant life.
Degdan was still talking. Each year, he was telling the story of our people.
As the leader of the upir, Degdan wanted to be sure that our legacy wouldn't be forgotten, especially by the youth. So all his speeches was given in the upir language.
"The king sorcerer was human. The world he lived in was ruled by the faeries. Immortal and cruel creatures who enslaved humans.
So the king sorcerer created guardians to protect the human realms. But compared to the faeries, the king had a few powers. He didn't manage to give the vital force that lay in each living being.
Not alive, not dead. The guardians needed to steal the vital force of others creatures to survive. For a hundred years, the guardians fed on the faeries blood, pushing them away of the human realms.
But the faeries was mighty and clever. They used our blood thirst against us. They lunched an army against us and we killed them all, feasting with their blood.
But the soldiers had drunk liquid silver before the battle.
Poisonned and weak, we were slaughtered by the second army they sent on us.
The last of us ran through the Door thanks to an old magic. We found shelter in this world without magic. Released of our blood thirst, we had evolved, helped shaping this world. And if our present is flourishing, we shall not forget the past and the threats squatting there.
Because our role didn't change. We are the guardians of the human realms. Upir means guardians in high fae. The Door must be guarded, protected and, if the gods blessed us, forever closed."
I closed my eyes, feeling that I'd be called soon.
The oath was said in Upir. I had repeated a hundred times in front of my mirror the sacred words but I wasn't completely satisfied by my pronunciation.
I sighed. I didn't understand why we were forced to learn the Upir and the High Fae. We'd never going back to the old world. This languages were dead, useless. A folklore.
Degdan finished his speech. He called the australian girl first. She recited the sacred worlds so perfectly that I snorted.
Then, he called a boy and it was my turn.
I tightened when I heard my name. I walked steeply on the stage.
As soon a I stepped out, I was lighting up by a floodlight and cheering welcomed me.
I smiled to the crowd and walk toward the Door.
When I was a few step ahead, I felt a pulse coming from the Door. All my body started throbbing. More I came closer, more I felt it deeper.
I gritted my teeth as the throbbing became pain. I struggled to remain straight.
I bristled at the disturbing feeling, suddenly wanted to run away from the Door.
According to the ritual, I'd have to place myself under the arch of the Door to take the oath.
It was just one step to my goal. But the throbbing was stronger and stronger. It turned my stomach and I was feeling nauseous.
I froze in front of the Door, crushed by its power.
The vibration was clouded my senses, like locked in a bubble of cotton.
I turned my eyes to Degdan who was standing a few step away. His face reflected a terrible confusion. I looked the crowd, people get up and were pointing the Door with an alarmed look.
At the moment I understood something was wrong, a white and shining light exploded in front of me, blinding me.
Before I had the time to get out, two strong arms seized me and toppled me across the Door.
The pulse became deafening and all my senses stopped working. I didn't breathe. I floated during a few seconds and, suddenly, I hit something hard.
A nauseous piss reek overran my nostrils.
Thunderstruck and confused, I looked around me.
I saw first a stone floor, then, a few feet away, a pair of black leather boots. My eyes followed it up and I found out a tall wealthy worn man.
Not a man, I immediately understood. He was too big, too tough to be a man. Even his smell was different of a human. And his eyes... There were no words to describe how dark there were. It was both bottomless pits. Ageless.
Cruelty emanated from each single part of him.
I laboriously rose on my feet, cramped with my bulky petticoat.
I faced him. He was taller than me.
He looked slowly at me from the toes to the head. I could feel his eyes on me like two ice cubes slipping up leisurely along my body.
He talked in a language I didn't recognize while his head turned lightly to another creature dressed like a monk. The latter chuckled.
As he turned, I could clearly see his long fae ears.
"Faerie!" I hissed, stepping back.
The Fae grinned at me. But the smile didn't reach his eyes. He leaned forward.
"Upir !" He said.
An icy thrill ascended my spine.
Still smiling, he stepped back slowly. I availed this moment to look around me. I was in a huge cave lighted by hundreds small lighting balls which seemed floating in the air.
Some dozen of floors of wood scaffolding covered the walls.
Shoutings began to gush from there. I look more carefully and discover holes in the stone. Holes closed by bars. Prison bars, I understood.
Prisoners were screaming at me, pointing something with their arms through the bars of their cells.
I looked what they were showing to me. A platoon of soldiers headed to me. They spread around me, surrounding me.
I freaked out and deflected, foolishly trying to escape them. I saw the Door and I tried to reach it but something burning felt on my shoulders. I howled of pain.
I could feel my flesh burning and blistering where a silver net touched my bare skin.
I struggled to get out of this trap but I felt something skewer my side. I screamed again. I turned and I saw a soldier ready to sting me with a spear. I shoved myself to him before he could stab me again. We both fell on the ground and rolling on his side, I suddenly freed myself from the net.
I stood up as quickly as possible considering my shock, my dress and my injuries.
But already a soldier, a dagger in the hand, was charging me. Surprisingly easily, I dodged him.
Upir summer camps weren't only about History and Ancient languages. We learned to fight too.
The soldier overstepped me, I pushed him with all my strength and he crashed against the stone wall, ten feet away, in a bones crash noise.
My strength surprised me. Upirs were strongs, compared to humans. But not that strong. It felt like the soldier weighed nothing.
The empty eyes fae had reached a wood platform overlooking the pit where I was fighting. He sharply ordered something to his soldiers. Hearing the tone, they straightened and attacked me again. I dodged a spear but another one stabbed me in the shoulder. I caught it and pulled fiercely on it. The soldier on the other side was dragged to me. Without a thought, I grabbed him and bit him in the neck.
He let out a scream which ended in a gurgle when I opened his throat totally.
His blood filled my mouth and I instantnatly feel my injuries healing.
It was the most delicious thing in the world I ever tasted. Despite all the ennemies around me, I couldn't bring myself to let him go. A new silver net was throwing on me.
I kicked out and twisted trying to escape again from the burning. But the soldiers were now on me and stabbed me again with their damned silver spears. They hit me again and again. I tried to scratch them through the net but they managed to immobilize me.
I was quartered on the ground, the weight of several soldiers on each of my limbs.
I fruitlessly tried to move them by kicking out and growling. Each time I moved, the silver net inflicted me insufferable pain and weaked me a little more.
Then, the empty eyes fae came back.
I was out of my mind. I begged him to let me go. To send me home.
But he smiled at me without joy.
His voice rang, calm and icy.
The soldiers lifted the net on my face and my neck, carefully staying out of the reach of my teeth.
The empty eyes fae leaned over me and cuddled my cheek. There was no tenderness in this gesture. Only domination.
With his other hand, he snatched my necklace.
I yelled by surprise.
He locked a new necklace around my neck. A silver one. I screamed with pain. Despite my plea, he locked matching bracelets to my wrists and my ankles.
The soldiers stood up and took back their silver net which was holding me. I ceased to be a danger for them. The silver was eating my flesh and poisonned my body that much that I didn't have the strength to get up.