Chapter 18.
"What exactly do you mean by family heirloom? I mean I never got it so why did you?" I ask with my eyebrows raised.
"Oh is someone a bit jealous?" I give him an incredulous look. Actually no, I'd rather not have a big birthmark in a very obvious place that could potentially identify me as an ancient family the Moroi council seeks to kill.
"No, I just want to know why only the men have it" I tell him. After pacing around the space of my room twice, he turns to me with a smirk.
"Maybe we are just special, the favourites." He says with a wink.
"Danahi," I say with gritted teeth, I can feel my anger rising again. "Can you be serious for one moment and tell me something useful." I stare him down again.
"Fine fine, god you may as well be throwing knives at my throat." He sits down on the bed with me. "It's only in the men because it was created for us during the times when the Nesahlas were being hunted, so that we could identify each other. So men who are Nesahlas now, would know I'm one too by my birthmark. Unless you're like your father who in his case doesn't know who he is and just thinks he's a Markson. It's also how the Moroi council identify us. If they get leads on certain people, all they have to do is look for this." He taps his shoulder.
"What?! You mean someone created these marks on our family?" I ask.
"A witch, from one of the families, wanted to make sure that someway, people in the future would know who they are. I suppose they must have had an idea of what was going to happen to them. These marks were created so they were passed down to each generation, they only run in the Nesahla family." He looks at me again with a slight glimmer of sadness.
"Well at least you guys have something that marks you as one of them." I sigh. I actually would like to have something that proves I'm one of them. I mean family trees and birth certificates can be faked, birthmarks and any kind of genetic markers cant.
"Actually, you do." I what?
"Excuse me?" He leans over and pulls my hair away from behind my ear.
"You do have one. I was being sarcastic about us males being special," he says with a smile. "The females of the family have one too. You have one behind your ear." He taps a spot right at the top of my hairline behind my ear.
I rush up and run to the bathroom. Just as I reach the mirror I can hear Danahi laughing.
"What's so funny?" I ask as I'm trying to pull back my hair and pull forward my ear to see it but I can't.
"You won't see it." He walks to the door of my bathroom and leans against it.
"Why won't I?" I ask, still pulling at my hair.
"Because it was designed that way. If you can't see it, you won't find it. You wouldn't be able to see it unless you were looking for it either."
I give an exasperated sigh and let go of my hair. "Why the hell would they make it like that? You get to see yours but we can't?" I find myself growing more and more aggravated by the minute.
"I can only think that it was to protect the females of the line, you are the only ones that can reproduce you know!" What? That's kind of the world's most useless fact right now.
"Oh shit, you don't say." I say, my words laced with sarcasm. Danahi narrows his eyes.
"Watch it. I mean, they made it that way for you because if you didn't know who you were, you couldn't tell anyone, which means no one knows, you survive, meet a mate, the rest is history. They made your mark, so we, meaning us guys, know who you are." My head spins. Well I guess that's a good reason.
"None of this is explains why the visions are happening though." I whisper. I don't expect Danahi to hear, but I forget we are vampires.
"That's a mystery to me too. Though that's half the reason why I'm here!" he says cheerily, claps his hands together and heads back out to my room. I follow after him and sit on the floor, opposite my bed which Danahi occupies. I look at him expectantly as if to ask why. "I'm here to help you learn to bring on your visions." He says with a Cheshire cat smile. I roll my eyes at him.
"And how am I meant to do that. I've tried before. And failed." I tell him. He jumps up off the bed and comes to sit next to me.
"That's because you didn't have me helping you!" he says. Honestly he sounds like a fifteen year old girl. I roll my eyes again.
"Fine."
10 minutes later, my anger has risen.
"This is so damn useless. I can't do it, can't we just leave it at that." I get up from the floor. I have cramps in my legs and I'm trying to ignore my frustration. I start pacing.
"You're not going to get it instantly Vienna, it takes ti…"
"Time, practice, yeah yeah I get it, whatever." He glares at me when I finish is sentence. I run my fingers through my hair and try to calm myself. "I can't do this stuff, I'm useless." My temper still rises. "God dammit! Why the hell is this happening to me?! I can't do anything useful, I don't know what any of this means, I can't…" my words are cut off when the scene abruptly changes. What?
A few seconds pass and I realise I'm in a vision. Well, what good timing. I take in my surroundings. I'm in the Nesahla house again, it all looks fine, the assassination obviously hasn't happened yet. I'm in the big room, the place where the safe and the book are. I try to concentrate on finding the details, and everything in the room takes form. The shelves, the crests on the wall, the furniture, everything takes shape, revealing a once well-loved home. On either side of me I see the room that is the library, with two great stone pillars standing beside the door. On the other side, there is the nursery. Though it seems different this time.
I walk over to the door, all the while trying to take in every detail I can. When I reach the door and open it, the room is completely different. There is no indication of a nursery at all, it just looks like a small lounge room. I few books on a shelf next to the window, I love seat seated on the opposite side, facing the window, a few other bits and pieces placed here and there but I don't really take notice. I'm more interested in the barely visible crack behind the love seat. I walk over and examine it.
I run my fingers along it and it doesn't feel like the crack is very deep but there's a slight difference in the material underneath it. On one side of it, it feels smooth, like any other wall, but on the other its slightly rough. I look over the wall abit more and find an identical crack about a meter away from the first one. How weird. I keep looking and find another above me that joins together the cracks on either side. This isn't just another part of the wall, its a door.
I move to the side of the love seat and push it over revealing the cracks that finish at the floor. I come to stand in front of it and give a slight push. I hear a small creak and push abit more. When it fully opens, I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding. But as soon as I open the door and take a step into the dark room, I hear whispers. I haven't heard whispers in a while. I try to concentrate on what they are saying.
"Occulta et ipse vivet vinctum"
The phrase repeats, over and over and by the fourth time, it's starting to grate on my ears.
I try to ignore the whispers and head into the room abit more. It's almost completely dark except for candles placed at random intervals. It almost looks the same as the room that created the strigoi. This one doesn't have as many objects scattered around, it's neat and organised. I tread through the room, examining everything carefully. Nothing really stands out. It kind of just sounds like the usual witchy stuff I've heard Danahi mention a few times. Turning to a different desk, I see a bunch of herbs tied together, a pendulum hanging from a nail on the wall and a book.
Feeling the need to see it, I slowly walk over and put my hands on the desk, a little swell of dust slides from beside my hand. The book looks familiar. But I don't think I've seen this one before. Its brown leather, it has an N imprinted in the top left corner in what looks like silver ink. At the bottom of the book more silver writing twirls.
"Book of Shadows" it reads at the bottom. I wonder what it is. As I reach out to touch it I notice pieces of paper scattered underneath it, most of them a written in what I recognise as Latin, so I don't bother examining them further.
I extend my hand further, trying to make some sort of contact with the book, but when I do, the vision changes again. There's smoke and fire, a woman, I think its Louella, holding a book in her arms and murmuring. All of a sudden, it changes again, and I'm back in my own body, swaying back and forth on my heels as I try to gather my bearings.
"Whoa hey, that seemed like a big one, you were out for a while" he ushers me over to the bed then heads into my bathroom and returns with a cup of water. By the time I've had a few sips I feel slightly more grounded. I've never reacted like that to a vision. All my energy faded, my brain felt fried and I just couldn't do anything.
"What happened?" he asks as he kneels in front of me. I look down at my hands and fiddle with the cup.
"I don't exactly know, I was seeing one room and then a door, and then another and…I don't know I can't really remember" the more I try to think about it the more I feel the memories fade.
He urges me to drink more water and I comply. Once he thinks I'm well enough, he heads out to make a phone call but of course promises to return.
I put the cup on the nightstand and then lay down, I feel exhausted. I start to nod off but im disrupted by Danahi walking back into the room.
"Hey sleepy head, I've got some good news." I sit up instantly.
"Good news?" I stare at him expectantly. Is this about the book?
"Your book is on the way" he smirks at me, clearly amused that his mission is almost complete. The book is on the way. Soon, I'll be able to have it. I need it. I can try to understand all this. The more I think about it, the more I feel the tension rise in my body. My vision tinges red for a moment, but disappears. Weird.
"That's great! Oh, that's great thank you!" I get up to hug him. After a quick hug he lets go.
"So what now? What do we do now? Do we wait?" I ask.
Danahi doesn't have time to answer any of my questions, as someone else walks through my door. Max. Oh no. this is not good. Danahi freezes and so does Max. I suspect Max froze in complete surprise, Danahi on the other hand, I know he froze in fear.
Max recovers, then stares between Danahi and where I am sitting. He surveys the rest of the room, the cup of water of the nightstand and the slightly rumpled bed where I almost fell asleep. This clearly does not look good. Danahi is still frozen but Max looks to me, with abit of anger in his eyes.
"What the hell is this?" he says.