Chapter Thirteen
Hamburgers. When Hugh had suggested it to Joan he had only thought of how nice it would be to escape the oppressive atmosphere of the Descouedres mansion. "This is nice." Joan said; her voice was muffled as she chewed around a mouthful of beef patty.
"The cheeseburger?" Hugh's brow arched as he unwrapped his burger.
"No, spending time with you." She said and nudged him gently in the ribs.
He had met Joan three years ago when she had been a new recruit out of Outer Richmond, San Francisco, she was a powerful and untrained psychic and had known him to be an old soul from the first handshake.
"Yeah." He said and bit into his burger. "It's been a while, hasn't it?"
"Yeah." She said blithely and bit into her burger.
They both chewed meditatively and he was content to be with someone uncomplicated and undemanding.
"I'm sorry about Cat." She murmured.
He winced and then shrugged, he hadn't told her about Cat but being psychic she would have known anyway: he hadn't been protecting his thoughts since he had come to Vegas he had let all his defences slip. "We should call a cab." He said huskily.
"You're avoiding something." Joan said.
He rolled his eyes. "Joan please."
"I can' help it: you're projecting."
"Can we talk about something else?"
"How about your friend?" She said shyly. "Soren."
"You like him?"
"He seems nice."
"He is." Hugh said though she would loath if he were to start dating Joan who was sweet and good and deserved to be looked after.
"Excuse me." Someone waved them down from the side of the road, Hugh glanced dubiously in the man's direction. "Do you know where West Flamingo Street is?"
Joan took Hugh's arm and lead him across the road to the dark haired man was waiting. "Where do you want to go?" Joan asked.
"West Flamingo Street." He said with a hopeful glean in his voice.
"Sure, it's just up that-"
"Why don't you two come with me." He interrupted, his voice changing, ringing differently in Hugh's ears and he knew then with growing fury that the young man was a vampire and he was trying to hypnotise them.
"Do as he says." Hugh advised softly.
They did, Joan despite her gifts, still hadn't discerned what the man was and only Hugh's fierce grip on her hand made her cautious.
"I'm sorry to have to ruin your night, folks." The vampire said without any trace of sincere apology in his voice, in fact he was quite cheerful, seemingly delighted that it was going so well for him.
"Where are you taking us?" Joan asked.
"There's a nice little intimate corner over this way." He said. "I'm glad you came along, I was beginning to think that I'd be done for, and I was getting so thirsty."
"We're happy to help, I'm sure." Hugh said through his teeth.
His sarcasm lost, the vampire gave a carefree smile and shrug and the ushered them into the darkness where no one would witness their demise. He directed them to their knees and Hugh put a hand on Joan's arm easing her to comply and she did with only a little sniffle of fearful tears.
Hugh was struggling to think quick at what he could do, neither of them could outrun the vampire and neither had a suitable weapon. His eyes slipped about the darkness trying to make out the shadows and small points of light, anything…anything.
The vampires leant down and Joan hitched a breath as his shadow fell over her.
"Citizen." The voice was like an icy breeze cutting through the tension like a razor. Hugh lifted his head and saw Eva's unmistakable figure silhouetted against the light. He held his breath not sure whether to feel relief or renewed fear.
"Your grace." The vampire fell to his knee in complete deference. "I had not thought-"
"Clearly." She seemed at home with his homage and her dark eyes moved over the vampire's bowed head with unmistakable disdain. "To what House do you pay fealty?"
Hugh marvelled at the change in the vampire, turning from fierce and mocking into this obsequious being. "Ophision, if it pleases your grace." The vampire trembled as he spoke.
Her eyes moved over Hugh's face but did not linger, he felt coldness wash over him at her expression that was perfectly devoid of emotion. "I want these humans."
"But they-"
"You could challenge me." She said her voice velvety dark underlined with amusement and danger. "If you wish?"
The vampire shook his head, no and moved away quickly disappearing into the night. She watched and waited until she knew he was far enough to turn back to the two mortals, her expression softening.
"How did you do that?" Joan asked.
"Every House born vampire knows you do not challenge an elder. Though he is within his rights to seek retribution I suppose." She murmured whilst she crouched to break their bonds.
"Retribution?" Joan pressed, her eyes large, her lips open her mind teetering on the feelings of fear of beasts coming for her in the night.
"I technically stole his dinner." Eva's said and her eyes met Hugh, a small smile curved the corner of her lips that only he could see being so close.
Joan's eyes went wide at the thought of being anyone's dinner.
"You're an elder?" Hugh asked softly.
Her gaze turned lightless, the amused expression became cold and unreadable and it was clear she was not going to elucidate. "You should both get back; it's not safe in the dark."
Hugh got to his feet, he helped Joan to stand as well, they both began to dust off their clothes. "What about you?" Joan asked readjusting her blouse but when they both raised their heads Eva was gone.
"She likes to do that." He murmured laughing quietly to himself.
"She saved our lives. Who is she?"
"She's one of us." He said.
Eva had returned back to refuge of the mansion with dread in the pit of her stomach, the Ophisian vampire had seen her, had known her and so it would not be long before the Court knew of it. Not long before the Night would come for her.
Her mind moved toward the past. "Why are you thinking of these things now?" She asked her own reflection but it could not answer back.
Around 1300 BC
Ethīn and Theorn lived quietly in Ephesus, staying privately away from the people emerging only to make offerings in the temple of Artemis for Ethīn was ever the adept hunter and had an affinity for the goddess. One night as they sat beneath the cool light of the moon she turned her face to her companion and said the fateful words. "I must go back."
"Back where?" Theorn asked although he didn't have to truly ask the question for he knew her curiosity as well as she did.
"To Byehliy." She indulged him.
"No." He said with absolute authority but it didn't seem to faze her.
"I must go and see what has become of them."
"You will regret such a thing, Ethīn." He said. And yet the ceaseless tugging feeling would not let her go these past ten years and it had come to the point of pain and she could no longer ignore it.
"Then it will be mine to regret." She said. He stared at her with those dark, sorrowful eyes and it seemed her fate was written in his gaze. "I have consulted the Oracle of Apollo and she has given me a blessing."
He made a noise deep in his throat for he did not put stock in the Greek oracles for Theorn was being of a Power and lineage that were touched by true magic. "I cannot come with you." And he didn't venture with her through the tangle of lands and disparate nations, she took rout by sea, paying for passage on trading ships and where she could not trade she coerced or thieved.
On a stolen horse she rode hard toward the ice lands of her home and when the horse tired and dropped she fed from its veins so that she might continue on foot.
The Byehliy had been an elegant arc of mountain and ice surrounded by a mysterious woodland and large planes of white snow and yet when she came upon it now after months of travelling she could barely recognised the melted plane, the grey rock peeking through thin skeins of ice and snowfall.
Her homeland was no longer white upon white but patches of white with grey rock and grey soil. Devoid of life.
She ascended to the ridge to gaze down at the planes, there had been battles fought for the earth was torn and frozen with the imprint of hooves and boots. Spears and arrows lay inert and preserved in ice.
"You." She turned only half surprised to see Imre sitting on horseback. He was badly aged, a hunched and grizzled old man with grey in his long dreaded beard and a long scar over one eye. "I knew you would come, verale."
His good eye moved over her up and down and his lips fell open in surprise. "You have not changed, Ethīn."
"I have." She assured him with an enigmatic smile. "Where are they? Where is the Voin?"
Imre spat on the ground beside his horse. "There is no Voin, verale. They are Bythinians now."
"What?" She could not conceal her surprise.
"After you left Nicomeades armies raided the Plains and Byehliy, they took what was left of the Voin with them, our women, our children."
"But you survived."
"I did." He said though he seemed wretched with memories of the distant battle. "And you, verale, where have you been hiding?"
"Come down from your horse so that I might tell you." She said and her voice took on a lulling note and he found himself obediently dismounting from his horse and trudging up the icy slope to where she stood.
He marvelled at her face, a gasp passing his lips. "You truly have not changed, Ethīn." He whispered.
She reached up, her fingers gliding across his cheek, the matted fur of his beard, the curl of his hair around his cropped ear. "I am not the same as I was, Hanok." She said, her voice running in a throaty sigh. "And I am so very thirsty."
He was dazzled by her dark eyes, the compelling beauty of her exotic features, deep in his heart he had a curiosity for the verale girl and she exploited this to lure him down toward her. Her lips moved against his neck which was salty with sweat and bitter with soot.
She bit into him and his body tensed, arms flying to her shoulders, squeezing and pushing but to no avail, she was as solid as the mountain on which they stood and soon his powers to fight failed him as his blood ran from the wound of his neck into her throat, curling warm in her insides.
When she was done he fell to the ground, not dead but unconscious. "Let us leave you to the will of Morana, last of the Voin." She said softly feeling no regret.
The lights in his eyes were dim, she was a shadow moving across his weak gaze and as she had said she left him there to his fate upon the melting snow of the Byehliy, the ravenous wolves stalking betwixt the solemn trunks of the nearby forest.
It was on foot she moved toward the warmer climbs of the Bythinian kingdom, between the Black and Caspian Seas. The Bythinians lived in stone houses surrounded all about with a great wall.
She approached on foot, cloaked and showing no signs of fatigue despite the long journey and few provisions along the way. Her body felt aflame with the need to consume blood but she had not stopped since she had drunk Imre on the snowy ridge.
"Who goes there?" A voice hurled down from the parapet, she lifted her head to see the tip of a helmet and point of a spear.
"I have come for rest and trade in your kingdom if you will allow it." She said, her voice ringing clear.
"From what people do you hail?"
"I come from Ephesus, I am a supplicant of the Temple of Artemis I seek respite with Cotys." Ethīn knew Cotys to be Artemis' likeness in these parts: they were both goddesses of the hunt.
The solider called down the ranks until the great wooden doors opened to admit her. "There is toll for admittance, supplicant." A helmeted guard said holding out his palm.
"I carry no coin."
"Then you will pay with other wares." He said and using his larger size and shape he herded her toward the dark corridor between the walls of the great city.
She allowed herself to be led, feeling only the small stab of relief that her first foray into the large stone city was to spill the man's blood but that was his own folly. He removed his helmet, shaking out lose golden curls and she was startled by how he reminded her of Solon.
His hands were upon her clothes, shoving and tearing at the fabric and she had to grasp his face to force him to stare into her eyes, calming his eager hands and then pushing his head to one side she laid her lips against his neck. She bit tenderly, and sipped and the blood was like cool lakes of crystal through the fire of her veins.
When she had finished, laying a small kiss on his skin that was damp with sweat she asked him. "Who is King here?"
"Solon son of Nicomeades." He answered, a look of confusion shot across his features and he replaced his helmet before marching to his post.
Ethīn was frozen, shock enveloped her. Solon, the Bythinian Hanok who had shown her kindness was he not Solon son of Nicomeades, had he not been rented from life from the jaws of wolves? She adjusted the cloak on her shoulders and walked into town, teetering on the edge of disbelief. Surely it was not the same Solon, perhaps all sons of Nicomeades were named so.
The city was ordered in concentric circles with the palace in the centre, she had few circumspect looks from the citizens of Bythinia but there was enough of the exotic in the market circle and Temples to not quest further.
She approached a street vendor who was pouring wine from an amphora into a skin. "You can have a sip for a copper, Miss." He said.
"I've not come for wine but for knowledge."
"Then that will cost you more than a copper." He eyed her shrewdly.
"Your King, the man they call Solon son of Nicomeades, where can I find him?"
"That's not information worth paying for." He grunted. "The King and Queen live in their palace at the heart of the Kingdom but not common man may call upon him and you do not appear to be a woman of note."
"Thank you." She said with a forced smile.
She found her way to the temple of Cotys and was greeted at the step by a guard in the same plumed helmet as the guards on the outer gate. "You are not permitted to be here at this time, woman."
"I seek only prayer in the temple." She said.
"The King occupies the temple; it is the same hour and day of every month that this is so."
"Forgive me." She whispered. "I did not know."
So she waited on the dusty street, her eyes on the passageway between the vaulted pillars. The palace guard eyed her warily but did not approach or speak to dispel her from her place of watch. She waited some hours, but what were these hours to the journey she had made from Ephesus to the Byehil and back to this kingdom of the Bythinian King?
It was dusk when the lamp bearers arrived on the streets and swarms of people gathered, pressing hot and eager on either side of her for a glimpse of the royal party departing the temple.
"She throws gold coins." A woman whispered to her ecstatically.
"Who does?"
"The Queen."
Ethīn was intrigued at so magnanimous a woman to throw her treasured gold to the street people of Bythinia, was the kingdom so rich as to spend their coin this way? Or was this a demand of Cotys the goddess huntress? She knew when the royal party emerged because the crowd surged forward as inevitable and unstoppable as the sea.
She moved with them, though her size held her at a disadvantage for she could not see over the tops of the people's heads.
A great lantern was lit, casting orange light upon the royals who clustered at the top of the steps of the temple and as the woman had said, golden coins showered down around them and the greedy Bythinians stooped to retrieve them and then Ethīn saw it for herself.
Solon was as unmistakable as the sun, his grey eyes solid as they moved over the crowd, one hand he lifted in greeting to his people and the other lay on the shoulder of his Queen. His Queen was familiar, though older than Ethīn had last seen her, it was unmistakably Katrine who was crowned with the golden diadem and a child of a few years stood at her knee helping to launch the golden discs into the frenzied crowd.
If Ethīn had had a mortal heart to seize it would have stopped and she would have fainted dead away.
She looked back at Solon and knew his grey eyes had picked her out of the crowd, and he stared at her as if seeing deep into the marrow of her bones and the workings of her mind. Panic set in and Ethīn fled, pushing the Bythinans aside without care though no one remarked on the strength of the small woman because they were too busy reaching for their spoils.
Miss S