Distance

Disclaimer: This all belongs to Richelle Mead except for the plot, that's mine.

Chapter 10

Okay, I know it's been long, school has overtaken my life and I'm only in grade 10, I haven't had much time for writing, when I have had time my brain has just completely switched off, so I know how annoying it can be reading a story, not getting a update for months (Wow it's been three months!) so I'm going to give you a brief overview of what has happen to jog your memory.

Dimitri's sent to academy.
Mentor's Rose.
Dimitri, Lissa and Viktoria get kidnapped.
Dimitri is with kidnapper, Katya.
Lissa and Viktoria are still locked in dungeon.
Katya is getting last thing needed for the spell. (The one that's going to kill all strigoi)

Dimitri's POV

It was quiet, too quiet. If Mary was screaming or talking, or moving it wouldn't have felt so . . . Weird. I had an itching feeling, a nervous tick almost. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up, waiting for an attack to either Katya or me but it never came. My mind was raging a mental war as I drove, consciously I thought it was safe, I could relax, Mary would go for Katya first, which would give me enough time to react. But my basic instincts, my guardian skills, screamed at me to stay alert, there was strigoi need by, my instincts screamed. I could restrain myself from attacking it, but the gut ranching feeling wouldn't go away, I could hardly concentrate on the driving. I knew the drive was short compared to what could have been, Katya was picking up on the tension.

"God! Dimitri just calm down! Mary isn't going to do anything!"

She said too many times to count. I hoped we got back soon I was pretty much running on fumes and I couldn't stand being this close t a strigoi that could attack me at any minute.

Rose's POV

Another day gone and they were still missing. I felt so useless, the stress woke me slightly early than usually and I went for a walk around, the sun was just rising, the beginning of another day.

I watched in silence, in awe of something beautiful but deadly, I found comfort in the rays hitting me, it was like I could pretend Lissa was here with me, but I felt my life was never going to be like that again.

I headed back inside wondering what it would be like for Dimitri to hug me or kiss me, would it feel like the sun? Warm and beautiful? I scolded myself, looking like that and being a guy pretty much said at his age he already had a girlfriend, well one would hope it's a girlfriend.

Back in my room I changed robotically, I was- Everyone was out of ideas on how to get Lissa back. And to add to my worries, Dimitri's family is arriving sometime today.

Instead of avoiding the impossible, I headed out, I went to the gym, stretching. I was going to continue running, it helped clear my mind and I hoped that when, I refused to think if, Dimitri got back I would get to see that look that told me he was proud.

God. I had to stop thinking about him constantly, I sounded like a pathetic love struck 13 year old. Like Juliet.

I headed out, immediately I relaxed into the rhythm and concentrated on the movement. Willing my legs to push faster and harder, I began to wish this could be life. I wished I could get away from all of this and just have a simple life with friends and a family that was around so much I was suffocated.

But that wasn't my life.

Not right now.

And boy, did it suck.

I stopped running, all good things must come to an end. I bent over and put my hands on my knees for a few seconds before heading inside to do some cool down stretches.

About 10 minutes later I was starving and ready for breakfast. It seemed that with the limited amount of guardians available to guard it was easy just to leave us all in the cafeteria getting up early was the only way I got a little bit of exercise. And I could tell it was taking its toll on some fellow class mates. Everyone was on edge and jumpy because we were stuck inside all day.

Entering the cafeteria it was semi quiet as everyone slowly filled in for breakfast. I managed to miss a majority of the line and sat down with some weird shaped food I assumed was omelets.

I had just taken a bite when I was greeted by Kirova, followed by, I assumed, Dimitri's family. I have to say a lot of people stared, which was understandable. 7 strangers standing in the cafeteria during what was pretty much a school lockdown? Yeah.

I finished eating as much as I could while Kirova talked, figuring I wasn't going to be staying long and I was right.

"Rose, this is Guardian Belikov's family. I am currently extremely busy with finding the Princess and need you to show them around." She left no room for question and so I agreed, mostly because I wanted to get to know his family, although defying her did sound like a good idea, I decided not to.

I glanced at them to see their reaction as to how Kirova worded it, they slightly annoyed understood as far as I could guess, that Lissa took priority over Dimitri and Vika.

She promptly turned on her heel and left. Quickly finishing my mouthful I held out my hand to who looked like the oldest, well 'cept for his grandma who looked to scary for her own good.

"Hi, I'm Rose, Dimitri's student. You must be Olena?"

She had a Russian accent similar to Dimitri's but slightly stronger.

"Roza! Ahh, how has Dimka been?" I sounded nice to hear her call me Roza and I assumed Dimka was Dimitri. Weirdest nickname ever.

I smiled thinking about how strict Dimitri was teaching me and guess, well hoped, he wasn't always like that.

"He's a very good teacher." Looking to the other members, I guessed from the ranging ages everyone was here. I moved around the group introducing myself. I ended at Yeva, I thought I was polite in greeting her but instead she looked me up and down before muttering something in Russian and waddling off towards the door. No one responded to her comment and so I assumed it wasn't to awful.

"So, I guess we'll get your bags, sign you in and I'll show you where guest housing is then." I said as I led them outside, Paul came up in front and was walking with me chattering about some of his friends back in Russia. I was kind of surprised how fluent he was in English at his age, although he couldn't get all the words. I doubt that would have made a difference, he probably would have come up chattering in Russian and have no idea I didn't speak the right language to understand him.

As we walked I noticed Yeva was a few meters ahead of us walking in the same direction, as far as I could tell.

We made it to guest housing pretty quickly, I kept the group moving fast so I could keep an eye on Yeva, I didn't think Dimitri appreciate coming back and finding his grandma dead, although I highly doubted there was anything on this earth capable of doing so.

The lobby area was pretty empty except for the piles of bags stacked by the center desk, looking around I could see Yeva wondering down a random hallway. There was a very bored looking moroi waiting for us, I helped fill out all the paperwork for each of them including Yeva, from the unconcerned faces of Yeva's family I figured she was fine for now.

We all started grabbing bags and headed after her. We eventually found her in one of the bigger guest housing rooms, usually reserved for royal moroi. It had some adjoining rooms that you could lock from both sides, Yeva was sitting in a chair in the corner kind of looking like a gargoyle, staring more like glaring at everything, until I came into the room and she fixed her attention on me, sizing me up as if she was going to fight me, I decided I wouldn't ever feel the need to sit in her seat there.

The room was really big and spacious, it was like an apartment almost, there was a massive king bed against one wall, a lounge room at the end and a kitchen in the far wall, there was no walls in between so it was like smooshing all three rooms together. I observed as the family looked around, there were three doors, one was to a bathroom while the two others were in fact adjoining rooms. I waited silently as they arranged where everyone was sleeping with the feeling on Yeva's eyes on me grew by the second.

Paul had only one bag, which he dumped by a bed I guessed he would probably be sharing with Karoline. He came over and was showing me some of his dinosaurs he had brought and I found playing with him was fun he was just that type of kid.

We were sitting on the floor in front of the door when Karoline came over and sat next to me. "He doesn't know much English but right now you guys are pretty much one of his best friends right now. I can tell because he doesn't like other people touching his dinosaurs."

I smiled at that. "He knows more English than I would have thought."

She nodded. "He's a fast learner."

We sat in silence while he played and I gave my input occasionally, it kept him satisfied but I noticed he slowly was becoming more unsettled, like Dimitri, he couldn't stay still very long.

"There's a playground," I suggested, "It's just around the corner, what do you guys think?" Karoline agreed and translated for Paul, I could clearly see the eagerness across his face.

We ventured out, although we probably shouldn't have with the state of the schools security. We told the others where we were going and headed out for the short walk. The rest of the family was headed out for some food soon and we agreed to meet up afterwards. Since they were all dhampirs, I figured they had enough training between themselves to protect themselves against any strigoi.

Paul was like a magnet to a fridge, the playground was just in sight and he was off, Karoline wasn't the least bit concerned so I trusted her motherly instincts and chatted as we caught up.

We weren't there long before my stomach started demanding food, since I had a small breakfast, thankfully it wasn't long before Paul was hungry too, once we got to the cafeteria it was just on lunch time, and was extremely busy. We nearly lost Paul at some points, we didn't need a third lost Belikov on our hands. Sitting down for lunch I thought, Dimitri had better come back fast, I didn't know how long we would last without him.

I quickly talked to Alberta, tomorrow we were going back to our original routine, the guardians at court are going to take over the investigation since we weren't getting anywhere. How did I manage to get the bad luck of losing my best friend and potential boyfriend/soul mate at the exact same time?

Dimitri's POV

When we arrived back with Mary everyone else was asleep, I was unbelievable envious of them, Katya decided I could finally get some rest, I fell asleep on the bed before I realized I should probably ask what she was going to do with Mary but I was too tired.

When I woke it was from the others, Katya, shaking me thank god, it wasn't Mary running away and Katya needing my help or from Mary eating us all. It was early morning when we had come back and I had sleep through a majority of the day.

We regrouped and left for the site behind the statues I had seen coming into the town, where the ritual was going to happen, after dark of cause, which brought me to now, standing next to him observing Lucy as she prepared for the spell. We stood in a semi circle, Katya stood to the left with Abe next to her, me and him in the middle and two my right was Mary. Katya was sick of hearing about, not just mine, but everyone's worries about having a strigoi so Abe's guards stood next to her, holding an arm each with Mary staring out to space.

We watched Lucy as she prepared, she placed a candle at four different points with one in the middle each different colours, all unlit. She then produced some herbs of some sort from a basket she had brought along with a lighter, the herbs were twistered together in some sort of braid. She lit the end and blew on it so it began to smoke, she waved it slowly back and forth in front of Mary first with her back to her and then so they were standing face to face. She moved on to both of the guardians, as she did so she explained what she was doing.

"These herbs are sage and lavender, it's an old Cherokee technique that is believed to ward off evil spirits. With the next spell I am about to perform, I'd rather do this then possibly be attacked by evil spirits." she said with a small smile, then last of the sage and lavender had burnt out and she was collecting more from the basket no doubt as she continued talking, as she walked towards me with the sage, I could instantly smell the full force of the herbs.

"The sage is believed to be the most strongest in warning off evil spirits, coupled with the lavender it is suppose to also cleanse the soul."

I began thinking she was saying a lot of 'suppose to' and 'believe to be's, I was going to ask when Abe bet me to it, as she grabbed more herbs and began with Katya and Abe.

"You don't make a very convincing argument with all your suppose to and believe to be's." He said skeptically.

"Well this is an exact science." She said as she finished and walked back over to the basket. She moved it from where it sat on a rock protruding from the ground by a meter or so that it sat at hip height, to the ground nearby. In the middle of the rock was a slight dip almost like a shallow bowl, she pulled out a knife and sat it on the rock near the dip.

Standing in front of it she glanced up at the sky. "Okay we have about 5 minutes until the moon is and its strongest point and I will be able to begin. So here's how it'll go we'll need the of the creator first, Katya, the two generations of descendants of the first strigoi and then a strigoi its self. They only think I need from you is blood, the rest has already been collected."

Apparently Katya had decided not to tell me this part. Lucy grabbed hold of a necklace that was hanging around her neck with both hands and began chanting something in what I guessed would have been Latin. She did so a few more times before beaconing Katya forward, letting go of her necklace she picked up the knife, using the other hand to hold Katya's hand over the bowl. Lucy quickly sliced her hand open still chanting as she did so. She placed the knife down again and curled her hand into a fist, placing one of her hands gentle over Katya's and holding the necklace with the other there was a rush of wind. I could see from the corner of my eye that one of the candles was now lit.

Lucy sent Katya back with her hand still dripping blood and beaconing Zayvin and I forward, we stood half facing her half facing each other as she grabbed my left hand and his right. Again she cut both of our hands, mine first as she did I felt the knife was actually extremely sharp and hurt a lot but I kept my composure and watch intently as she cut his hand before setting down the knife back to its original place. She pressed both of our hands together as our blood mingled and fell into the bowl. She let us pull our hands apart as a gust of wind blew through not affecting the already lit one and setting two more candles a light.

We returned to our spot in the circle, this time Lucy spent a few more minutes chanting before it was Mary's turn, which was the same as each of ours, both of Abe's guardians escorted her the few meters there and back, she was strigoi after all. And again the fourth candle was lit, Lucy reached inside the basket and produced a container holding some sort of liquid, she slowly pored the contents in and all the candles flared up. Slowly she reached up and unclipped her necklace holding it out above the mixture she spoke loudly, chanting before dropping the necklace in, immediately the mixture caught alight.

Lucy calmly stepped back as it burnt itself out, watching careful I noticed the smoke wasn't the normal grey colour it was dark shade of purple and wasn't acting like smoke it joined together hovering above the fire until it burnt out.

We all watched as the smoke slowly drifted down encircling the rock before they split into groups, one group I saw immediately targeted Mary, it swarmed around her. It gathered it's self together and formed a stake, by its own will it was plunged into her heart and she dropped to the ground. The mist was still shaped as a stake as she fell, it returned its self to a blob of smoke before floating of to find its next victim. I was too stunned at what had just happened to defend myself as someone hit my head and everything was black.