"What?" Ari asked. "Apparently her majesty is here and there's a party in her honor." Ziva said she was getting really annoyed at this point it'd be a miracle if she made it through the night without strangling someone. Ari ran a hand across his face "Any chance we could get out of it?" he asked hopefully. "I already tried and Abba told me in no uncertain terms that we were to be there and look presentable. Whatever he meant by that." Ari gave Kate an apologetic look "I understand its fine go." She said sincerely. "What time is this party?" He asked Ziva. "It's in an hour and a half." She answered. "Then we better get ready." He said reluctantly.
Ziva quietly went up the staircase to her old room. She went to her closet and pulled out a dress she was sure would cause heads to turn and eyebrows to raise. She knew it probably wouldn't be considered appropriate by queen or any of the other women in the room but if she was being forced to do this then she was to wear what she wanted. Besides when was she ever appropriate.
About 45 minutes later she stood at the top of the stairs and said "I'm ready let's get this over with." She was wearing a long dark red dress that hugged curves that were rare for moroi women to have. But the best part of the dress in her mind was the fact that it was backless. Kate looked at her and was impressed by the fact that she had managed to straighten her thick curly hair and under in an hour. Ziva walked down the stairs "where's Ari?" she asked. "I'm right here calm down." Ari said while walking out of the kitchen and into the living room. He was dressed elegantly in a suit that resembled something that James Bond might wear.
"We should get going." Ziva said to Ari. He turned to his mother "Are you sure you two are going to be ok here?' he asked in Arabic. "Yes we'll be fine and besides I'd rather slide down a banister of razor blades and somersault into a vat of rubbing alcohol than go with you." Hasmia replied in the same language. "I'll be back." He told Caitlin in English and kissed her forehead. Then the siblings turned and left out of the front door.
They got in their car and drove to the place where Tatiana stays when she's in Israel. The building is on the outskirts of Haifa away from most humans. On the outside it looks like a large fancy hotel but humans would never guess that important government decisions are made just not in any government their familiar with. They walked inside to the ballroom and Ziva's assumptions proved to be correct her dress did make a lot of heads turn.
Ziva and Ari stood in a corner trying to avoid as many people as they possibly could. There were never really comfortable with these things and still aren't. "I'll be right back I'm going to the feeding room." Ziva said. She went into the feeding room where a feeder was already waiting for a bite. She sat down next to him and bit down. When she was done she walked out "Ziva over here." A familiar voice called.
That voice belonged Rose Hathaway. Ziva walked over to her and Lissa who seemed to be joined at hip but that was normal for them. "Wow, Ziva that is quite a dress." Lissa said. "Thank you." Ziva replied "So, did you meet her?" Rose asked impatiently. "Not so loud you never know who's listening, Rose." Ziva chastised "And yes I did meet her." "What's she like?" Lissa asked curiously. "She's nice enough for a you know." Ziva said. Just then a moroi man came in between Lissa and Rose he put his arms around both of them "are you guys going to introduce me to your friend?" He asked. Rose groaned "Ziva this is Adrian, Adrian this is Ziva. Are you happy now?" Adrian took another look at her "your aura is gold." He said in disbelief. Ziva scoffed "is that your best pick up line? Because let me tell you it needs work."
Meanwhile at the David mansion Hasmia and Kate ate dinner and they were sitting in the living room talking. "So you and Ziva seem pretty close." Kate observed. "Well, I've known her she was born and after her mom died we got closer." Hasmia stated. "I don't mean to pry but can you tell me how she died?" Kate asked tentatively. Hasmia swallowed Sarah's death wasn't an easy subject for her or any of them Kate saw how uncomfortable this made her "you don't have to I was just a little curious that's all." "it's all right. How much did Ari tell you?" Hasmia asked regaining some of her composure. "Not much. He didn't seem like he wanted to talk about it and I didn't want to push him on it." Hasmia took a deep breath mentally preparing herself to tell this story.
"The first thing that you need to understand is that Sarah didn't die she was murdered." "Oh." Kate hadn't expected something like that. Hasmia continued with the story "one day when Ziva was about seven Sarah decided to take her out for breakfast but they never got to the restaurant. When they were on the way there Sarah's car was ambushed by strigoi. Sarah fought them but they outnumbered her vastly. They kidnapped her and Ziva wanting to know things about Exodus. The strigoi tortured them for three days one of them even ripped out Sarah's fangs-." Hasmia shuddered even though she knew this it was still hard for her to say ripping out fangs is one of the most painful things you can do to a vampire. "I don't know exactly how but somehow Sarah managed to get Ziva free and she told her to escape unfortunately though one of the strigoi stopped Sarah from escaping and killed her." Hasmia finished her story and Kate was near tears.
Back at the party Rose, Adrian, and Lissa had pulled Ziva into a private room. "Are you sure Adrian?" Lissa asked carefully. "I'm positive." Adrian said slightly offended that anybody had doubted his skills. "it makes sense she never specialized, her anger issues, the fact that she always got into fights, and her depression." Rose said. "What are you all talking about?" Ziva asked getting angry that they seemed to forget that she was standing right in front of them. "What we're talking about is spirit." Lissa said gently. "What is spirit?" Ziva asked.
"It's an element that was lost for centuries and it lets you do a lot of psychic mind stuff." Adrian said. "What does that mean?" Ziva asked her interest was increasing. "You can heal, make plants grow, see auras, hear thoughts, use telekinesis, dream walk, etc." Rose explained hoping to get a reaction out of her she did. "Hear thoughts?" Ziva asked before sitting down on a small couch that was in the room. "Do you guys remember freshman year at St. Vladimir's? When I started to get into trouble?" Rose and Lissa nodded in fact they were the ones she usually got in trouble with. "I started to have these really intense headaches and then after a while I'd started hear voices when no one was talking. I couldn't take it anymore I started drinking and it helped make the voices go away. Then my dad came and asked me what was wrong and I told him the truth that I was hearing voices and he got me on medication and they stopped." She explained.
"why didn't you tell us?" Rose asked. "I was going to but then before I could you guys had run away." Rose felt the guilt coming from Lissa through the bond they shared. "That explains your aura it's pure gold but muted you're on medication." Adrian who is now sitting next to Ziva said. "Do you want to work with us?" Lissa asked hopefully. "Work with you to do what?" ziva asked there's only so much she can take in one day. "To understand spirit the way it works but you would have to go off the medication." "If I stop taking the pills of the voices come back." "Maybe we can work to control it and we can teach to how to do other things." Lissa said still trying to get her on board. "I'll think about it I'm going to go find Ari, I've had enough of this party." Ziva said before getting up and walking out of the room.
Ziva's head was spinning as she walked over to Ari. She was trying to process what she had just learned about spirit. She couldn't take much more first Ari starts dating a human then she finds out about an element that was lost for centuries. On the plus side she wasn't insane like everyone thought. "Hey, I'm ready to go. Can we leave?" Ari who was talking to Christian until she interrupted him looked at her "But Ziva we haven't even seen the Queen yet." He said in a fake disappointed tone. Christian then said "Go. I'll tell them you guys caught the bubonic plague." They were cut off by an announcement that signaled the queen's entrance to the party. Ziva rolled her eyes they were definitely going to be there a while.
By the time they got back to their father's house Caitlin was asleep. "She fell asleep about an hour ago." Hasmia said quietly. That's when Ari remembered that she'd been up all night. Then Ari took Kate back to his apartment Ziva went to hers and Hasmia went home. The rest of the weekend went by pretty smoothly Kate even met Eli who hid his disapproval of her very well. The most surprising part of the weekend came just before they left "Kate, can you come upstairs with me for a minute?" Ziva asked just before they left the David mansion to go to the airstrip. "Of course." Kate said slightly nervous. Ziva led her up the stairs to her old bedroom she closed the door. "You're catholic." Ziva said as more of a statement then a question. "yes" Kate said unsure of where this was going. Ziva walked over to her dresser and took a black box off the top of it then walked back over to Kate and opened it.
She pulled out a simple necklace that had a silver chain and cross. The necklace was in pristine shape but the design of the cross looked very old. "did you know that most Moroi are catholic?" "Ari said something about that." Kate said uneasily. "One of the last things Moroi helped the humans with was the first crusade. Pope Urban II asked some Moroi to help provide protection to some of the crusaders form strigoi. So, they imbued a few silver cross necklaces with the magic of the four elements. Essentially creating personal wards so strigoi couldn't harm the wearer. This is one of the necklaces there's a little magic left to keep it from degrading but it probably couldn't protect you from a strigoi but, it couldn't hurt." Kate was stunned at this gesture it meant a lot to her that Ziva cared for her safety. "thank you." Kate said before taking the necklace and putting it on. They went back downstairs and Ari noticed the necklace he looked at Ziva and smiled. They then said their goodbyes and went to the airstrip.
Two weeks later
Kate and Abby had gone to a concert and were walking back to Kate's car. It was cold for June and it gave Kate an uneasy feeling .All of the sudden there was a brisk wind that went past them. Kate then looked at the man who was now in front of her and saw red rings around his eyes.