A Shade of Vampire 10: A Spell of Time (12 page)

C
hills ran
down my spine as I stared at the ghostly form.

Her shriveled lips parted, and ancient witch tongue spilled out.

“Why are you here?” she croaked, her voice rasping against my ears.

I had been around Annora long enough to be able to detect witch tongue, though when I spoke I wasn’t able to express myself well. I wasn’t sure that she would understand me but I had no hope but to try.

I was still in shock. I had believed that all the Ancients had passed from this world centuries ago. I couldn’t understand how one could have survived for so long.

Most of all, looking at her, I felt a crushing feeling in my stomach. I’d come in hopes of finding a solution to Annora’s misery, in hopes of finding a cure for her, a recourse. Looking at this creature of nightmares, I couldn’t imagine she’d do anything but add more darkness to my already pitch-black life.

Annora stepped in front of me and curtsied.

“Your Grace, I have come here with this vampire because he wishes to turn into one of us.” She looked conflicted even as she spoke the words, but she knew she had no choice in the matter if she ever wanted to regain a semblance of peace in her life again. Annora knew how stubborn I could be.

Lilith’s black eyes settled on me as she clucked her tongue, looking me over from head to foot. She retched suddenly. Black fluid dripped from her mouth into her cesspool. She looked back up at me, wiping her mouth with the back of her sharp bony hand.

“He’s not ready,” she said, looking back at Annora.

Annora and I exchanged glances. I saw relief in her eyes more than anything.

It was now time to take matters into my own hands.

“Leave, Annora,” I said, “I want to speak alone with Lilith.”

Annora glared at me. “Only if Lilith wants. She may not want to waste any more of her precious time with you.”

I scowled and turned back to look down at the disgusting creature. In the best witch tongue I could manage, I looked her directly in the eye and said, “I wish to speak with you alone, if you’ll let me. There is more to me than you perhaps realize.”

Lilith gargled. I wasn’t sure whether that was supposed to be a snort or a chuckle. Whatever it was, she was shaking her head. Not a good sign.

“Please,” I said.

Annora gripped my arm. “She doesn’t want to speak with you, Caleb.” She began to tug on me and pull me back toward the door.

I broke free from Annora and glowered down at Lilith. I didn’t know what possessed me—I could only assume desperation—but with one leap I dropped into the pool with the odious creature.

I thought the pool was shallow, but I found myself falling, the weight of my body sucking me down into the grime. It took all my strength to not be sucked under completely. I managed to keep my head above water. It was so heavy the substance felt almost like quicksand and it was a constant struggle to remain above the surface. Luckily I had the strength of a vampire. Any mere human would have been sucked right under, probably never to be seen again.

I could have sworn a glint of red flickered in Lilith’s eyes and now her face was contorted enough for me to read an unmistakable expression of fury.

Annora gasped and rushed to the side of the pool.

“Caleb!” she screamed. “Get out.”

Ignoring Annora’s pleas, I waded closer to the witch. And stopped about three feet away from her. I glared into her eyes.

I’d gone to all this trouble getting here. I wasn’t about to be brushed away so easily by this old hag. But mostly my desperation was brought about because I knew if I didn’t get answers from Lilith, my trail would be completely cold.

Damn it, I wasn’t going to leave without putting up a fight.

“Annora and I have been your loyal servants for years,” I said softly. I winced at my broken witch tongue, but lumbered forward all the same. “I have come here requesting to simply talk with you for a few minutes. Is that so much to ask now?”

The Ancient inhaled sharply and stared at me. Without warning, she jolted forward and gripped my forehead, her freakishly long fingers closing around my skull. I remained still, expecting to feel pain. But I didn’t. I didn’t know what she was doing, what she was feeling for, but after several moments, she let go, leaving a handprint of grime on my head and likely on my face. But grime was the least of my worries right now.

“What do you want?” Her voice creaked like a rusting door joint.

“Firstly,” I said, “I want to speak with you in private. I want you to order Annora to leave this chamber while we talk and to not enter until you give permission again.”

“Why do you want to talk in private?” Annora blurted out from behind me.

I ignored her, keeping my eyes level with the Ancient’s.

The grime was beginning to give me a headache. I had to fight to fend off the nausea.

She knew what I wanted now and she was either going to bend to my will or banish us both from the room again.

I breathed out as she slowly broke eye contact with me and looked at Annora.

“Leave,” she muttered.

I didn’t bother to turn round to look at Annora’s reaction. I knew she’d be seething. I kept my eyes on Lilith all the while as Annora’s footsteps disappeared and the door to the chamber locked.

I waded further away from the witch, placing more distance between us, and gripped hold of the edge of the pond. I hauled myself out and leaned against a wall. The Ancient too made her way to the edge of the pond and, placing her hands against the edge of the wall, she hauled herself up. I did a double-take as her decrepit body emerged from the liquid. She folded like a tray, then straightened up. She was almost twice my height as she stood up, her knees thin as rods, and so shaky I found it a wonder that she could even support her own weight.

I stood up, uncomfortable about her standing while I remained seated. She walked around the pond and headed toward a flight of stairs in a far corner of the chamber. She beckoned to me with a flick of her hand. I followed, keeping a few feet between us.

What is she? Is she even living? Or is she a ghost inhabiting a corpse?

To my surprise, we arrived on a landing with four chairs and a table.

She grunted, pointing to one of the chairs. Her lanky legs folded as she perched on one of the chairs opposite me.

I cleared my parched throat. “Do you remember what you did to Annora?”

I doubted that I could express all that I needed to, especially since Lilith seemed to speak in some kind of antiquated dialect, but I had no choice but to stumble forward regardless.

“Annora,” Lilith murmured.

“She came to you. She gave up her form as a vampire and became a witch. She wanted to become a Channeler.”

Her lip twitched and she shook her head. “She was not strong enough to become a Channeler.”

I stared at the witch. “You’re saying Annora isn’t a Channeler? How is it she has so much strength?”

“I made her a witch, but not a Channeler. Her mind was too weak. She gave in before she reached the other side.”

“Why wasn’t she strong enough? Mona was.”

Lilith’s eyes squinted into slits at the mention of Mona.

“Mona,” she croaked. “Traitorous bitch.”

“Yet Mona was strong enough to become a Channeler without losing herself in the process. Why did Mona survive it, but not Annora?”

Lilith stood up, her bones cracking as she began to pace the floor in front of me. “Annora was alone. There was nobody here. She had no partner. Mona had somebody.”

“What do you mean, partner?”

“I mean what I say, vampire. A partner. Somebody close. A relative. Or a lover, as Mona had.”

I shot to my feet, anger boiling within me. “Then why wasn’t Annora granted a partner for her transformation? She could have been—”

“She didn’t want anybody,” Lilith snarled. “She knew she ought to have someone, but she refused. She said she had nobody.”

That cut me deep. How could Annora have said that she had nobody? I’d told her a thousand times she owned my heart, every part of me through and through, and I would be there for her no matter what.

I swallowed back the hurt and regained composure, trying to realign my train of thought.

“So if Annora had called someone in with her, she wouldn’t have lost her mind the way she has.”

The witch pursed her rotting lips into a hard line.

“What is wrong with Annora anyway? I see nothing wrong.”

I wasn’t sure how to start explaining what was off about my fiancée to someone who slept in a pool of their own festering body juice. I just glared at Lilith. “Annora can no longer feel anything but pain. She was my fiancée. She used to be in love with me. She lost some of herself when she became a vampire, but when she came to you, she returned to me unrecognizable. You ruined her.”

“It was her choice,” Lilith snapped. “Nobody forced her to become a witch. She knew the risks. She took them.”

Again her words sent a dagger though my heart. I clenched my fists and stood up, walking over to where the towering nightmare was pacing.

“Whatever did happen in the past… that’s not why I’m here now. I came to ask you if what happened to her is reversible. I want you to undo the spell. Make her into a vampire again, if you have to.”

“And why would I do that? Annora is most valuable to us in her current form.”

“Then keep her a witch, but give her back her heart. What if you redid the spell—try to make her a Channeler again—this time with me present?”

Lilith stopped pacing and shot a glare at me. “Much like my skin, my patience is wearing thin. I have granted you this meeting only because of Annora’s and your loyalty to us so far. But remember, I don’t owe you anything. Annora got what she wanted, as did you. Don’t forget what we saved you from. You would still be rotting in Cruor were it not for us.”

There wasn’t much I could say to argue with her, although it felt like we’d jumped from the frying pan into the fire. What the witches had done could hardly be called saving. They’d taken us as prisoners, preying on our vulnerable state and complete absence of other options.

“You’re right that I can’t make you do anything, and neither do you owe me,” I said. “But in light of our years of service to you, grant this one request. I’ll never ask anything of you again. And think of how much more useful Annora will be to you once she’s a Channeler. And I too will be more motivated if we can somehow—”

Lilith clucked her tongue and clicked the bones in her knuckles impatiently. “And what makes you think redoing the curse will save your woman?”

“I don’t know that it will help. But I want to try.”

“There is no guarantee,” Lilith said. “It all depends on how strong her mind is, and how deep her attachment is to you. Her trust in you is vital to regaining mental stability, that you are next to her to remind her who she is… You may be willing to try, but what about Annora? Is she willing to try it? Because I’m not willing to waste any more of my time while you try to convince her.”

Time that you’d otherwise be spending doing what exactly?
I couldn’t help but think.

The Ancient was sharp despite her rotten skull. The tension between Annora and me evidently hadn’t escaped her notice and now she was trying to use it to brush off my request.

“Grant me five minutes,” I said.

When the Ancient hesitated, I reached out and gripped her bony arm. “Just five minutes of your time, in exchange for years of service.”

She withdrew her slimy hand from mine and shook me away.

“Very well, vampire,” she grumbled. “But no more than five.”

I raced down the steps and out of the chamber. Annora waited outside the door. I thought she might have been eavesdropping, but I didn’t care now. I just had to get her to agree to what I was proposing.

“Annora, I know you tried to become a Channeler. And you failed,” I said, gripping her shoulders. Her face contorted. “The Ancient is willing to give it another shot with hopes that it will be successful this time and this time I will be there with you.’

Annora narrowed her eyes on me. “What does this have to do with our trip? You said you wanted to become a dark witch yourself…”

“And I will,” I bluffed. “But Lilith said that before she agrees to it, since you’re here with me, she wants to try turning you into a Channeler again.”

“No,” Annora said, stepping back from me. “I don’t want to go through all that again.”

“Lilith wants you to,” I lied. “But think about it, this is a good thing. You’ll be more powerful than ever. You need to take this chance while the Ancient is willing. Her mood might change at any moment. It’s now or never. Come on.” I tugged at her.

“I’m fine how I am.”

I paused, staring at her.

“Do you not remember the pain you feel each night?” My face now a few inches away from hers, I continued to squeeze her. “Do you want to feel that for the rest of your life? Do you remember nothing of the life we used to share?”

She stared at the floor, refusing to make eye contact with me.

“Look,” I said. “I don’t care any more if you do this for me or for yourself. I’m tired of having to deal with you. Become a Channeler and finish the job. Do it for Lilith, for Christ’s sake, but just do it.”

“You didn’t want to come here for yourself at all, did you?” Annora said, biting her lip.

“It doesn’t matter any more.” I grabbed her hand and pulled her into the room. She didn’t resist this time, although she could have easily. I pulled her down the sloping floor toward the pond.

“Lilith,” I called.

The hulking skeleton descended slowly down the steps toward us.

“We’re ready,” I said, even though Annora looked anything but.

“Are you ready, Annora?” the Ancient asked, her eyes boring into her.

Annora breathed out and looked up at the ceiling. “What difference will being a Channeler make? I’m strong as it is.”

“You will be of more use to Lilith and the rest of our kind.”

Lilith began clicking her tongue, inching back toward her liquid tomb.

“No, wait,” I said. I pushed Annora toward the Ancient.

Come on, Annora. Don’t sabotage this. Please…