Lilah (40 page)

I make the girl
sleep. I have no use for the whining of a child for it will worsen my headache.

At times my
thoughts break apart like shattered glass. I must keep it together. I must not
crumble. I have promised the girl to another for a young witch is a prize
especially one born into such power. So young, she can be moulded into anything
her master desires. My return for such a gift will be that I am made Queen of
Hungary.

And once in
control I will order the execution of many men: relatives and all those
associated with my brothers and father.

Despite the pain,
there is still much to do.

Claude

We arrived at the castle of Laszlo.
There were no candles lit to welcome us as we entered through the servants’
quarters as instructed. Several maids stared at us suspiciously but Giorgio
ignored them and we followed.

We entered a great hall and then through to a
smaller chamber painted red with golden light fittings. There were several rugs
in the same regal shade worn through in places. Laszlo spent too much money,
wasting it on mercenaries and trinkets for his girlfriends. He sat beside a
fire. On his lap was a girl, a harlot. He was greedily sucking the blood at her
neck. It was vile and I turned my gaze. I tried to imagine it is not as I am.

He became angry that he was distracted from his
frenzied feed. Her neck was exposed to reveal a larger than normal wound as if
he had taken to her like a rabid dog.

Giorgio and the others sat on the couch
opposite him and waited. I hung back near the door in the shadows. None had
noticed that I was not sitting near them.

When Laszlo was finished his feeding he picked
up the shrunken remains in a bulky cheap linen dress and tossed her into the
fire like bracken. The fire sizzled and spat high.

He wiped the blood from his mouth on the back
of his sleeve. His feeding habits were no better as a strigoi.

‘So,’ he said, satisfied. His eyes had a
slightly glazed look as if he has been taking the herbs that made humans
hallucinate. ‘What is it that you have for me?’

Giorgio and the others tipped up the sacks, and
gold scattered and tinkled as they fell on the slate floor.

‘Oh, very good!’

‘Now if you would all follow me I will show you
to your chambers. I have allocated the whole floor below to use as you wish. My
servants now are your servants.’

‘And when can we sit on your counsel?’

‘Why, early tomorrow.’ There was no pause in
his response.

‘Because I am thinking that we should allocate
the strigoi certain lands.’

‘Of course, dear Georgio, but why
the rush?
You
have all the time in the world.’

He swept his hand across the air theatrically
and I could see that Georgio was pleased. His shoulders seemed to fall
slightly, perhaps relaxed that any threat had passed.

We followed a curved corridor spiralling
downwards. I hung back just a little.
No-one
seemed to
notice that I was not part of the main group. The strigoi looked around them
pleased, but I felt something was wrong.

At the base of the stairs was a small bridge
across a canal. Instead of following the others across it, I followed my
instincts, turning up a narrow stairwell that led to a maze of cavern corridors
beneath Laszlo’s castle. These corridors led to open archways overlooking the
water and from the foul stench it was perhaps where waste was emptied. I stood
in the shadows of one archway to view the strigoi below crossing the water. The
walls were damp, and dark olive slime stretched upwards from the watery ground
inching its way upwards to the ceiling. The scurrying of rats around my feet
did not deter me. I crushed one with my foot and hoped the smell of blood did
not distract my fellow strigoi.

Once across the bridge it was Lucretia who
enquired of their destination, her question also etched into a frown.

A soldier stood guarding a metal door and it
was here that my instincts told me, and perhaps Lucretia also, to hold back
from entering. Some of the other strigoi I could tell had picked up something.
There was a strong smell of oil.

The soldier opened the door and I could see an
empty circular chamber inside. This room was cut into rock.

It was not until the last strigoi stepped into
the room that I realised their mistake. I think in those final seconds so did
they.

From my hidden vantage, I saw the sudden
movement of several soldiers appearing on the floor above this room directly
across from me. They dropped torches into manmade holes in the ceiling at the
same time that the iron door to the domed chamber was shut and bolted; but not
before I saw the room erupt into a
fire ball
.

Flames shot up through the ceiling holes where
the soldiers had been waiting, so high that they all had to stand back. I heard
the shrieking viperous sounds of the strigoi burning alive. A couple tried to
claw their way through the ceilings but they were too late, their bodies
already blackened.

I covered my ears but it failed to mask the
sounds of torment.
These sounds were not only heard by ears
,
they penetrated the very soul. The soldiers could not take the noise and ran
from their floor jumping into the water below, screaming. The only one standing
was Laszlo. He wore something between a grimace and a smile: a self-serving
expression of one quietly pleased with their work.

I stood trembling behind the door, paralysed
for what seemed like minutes. Then finally I could not control the whimpering.
My friends were gone; I was a beast without home, without knowledge.

Laszlo must have heard it too.

‘Whoever you are,’ he called. ‘There will be no
escape for the likes of you. I will hunt you down and kill you.’

I ran then, fast along the corridors, in the
dark where only strigoi eyes can see.

Chapter 17

Lilah

From the moment I had discovered Oleander taken I
realised I was being punished by God.

Lewis lay on the floor immobilised by nature. I
knew what had caused it. I had read the magic books that he allowed
no-one
but me to see. I had written notes on the devil’s
trumpet a commonly known vine bought at many human market stalls. This plant
healed bloated stomachs and infections in humans yet to strigoi it could
paralyse.

The strigoi might have immortality but it did not
keep them safe from nature’s work. It was worse for a strigoi. At least a human
could die and go to another place. The end of material form for a strigoi was
blackness or nothing, the latter being the better option. And this was the life
Lewis wanted for his daughter!

I sat beside Lewis and held his hand but when
he looked at me all I saw was cold condemnation.

‘Lilah, you have failed me,’ he said. And
suddenly I was rolling backwards across the stone propelled by an unseen gust
of wind. It was not enough to send me flying to crash my bones against the
walls, but it was a sign of his determination and anger, and that his powers
were returning.

Gabriel stepped forward.

‘Do not challenge me Gabriel,’ he said. ‘I
should kill you now but for my daughter…you owe me that. Lilah will stay here
and I will deal with her. You must go and get Oleander.’

Gabriel looked to me, reluctant to go.

Go, I spoke to Gabriel through my mind, sending
him my messages also that I would be
alright
. Find my
daughter. I will join you shortly.

He would not have agreed had he known what I
was about to do. Several other strigoi, loyal to Lewis had entered, aware of
what happened. Take the other strigoi with you to help. I will join you
shortly. I
promise.Go
!

Lewis will harm you when he is better. When he
is at full strength.

‘Go,’ commanded Lewis echoing my final word.
‘All of you must find Arianne and destroy her and bring back my daughter.’

Gabriel left, his eyes lingering once and the
others followed.

I was alone with Lewis who did not remove his
gaze.

I went close to him tentatively and touched his
hand.

‘Can you ever forgive me?’

‘No, Lilah.
Your fortune is about to end.’ His
throat was dry and raspy and no doubt swollen and bruised, another effect of
the poison.

‘I never loved you but you must know that I
felt something for you all these years.’

It was my words that made him look away. He
eased himself upward. I could tell that the poison ran through his veins,
causing him pain. He was drawing on every particle, within his powerful core,
to fight it.

‘Perhaps you did but you also betrayed me, the
master of a coven. If I did not destroy you I would look weak. It must be so.
For the sake of the coven and our future there must be sacrifices. You weakened
me for a time, believing that witches can coexist with us but it is not so.
They are simply there to be groomed. Any remaining witches will be given two
choices as it was before. Death or immortality.’

‘And Oleander?’

‘She will become a strigoi when she is found.
Arianne will be brought back here alive where she will die a torturous death
like no other I have performed. When all the strigoi have fed on her and she is
nothing but rags I will let the rats feed on her also. Then I will burn her
slowly, piece by piece. Anyone who steals from me should expect no less.’

‘Then I’m sorry you have said that.’

He did not have time to ask why as I slipped
the dagger into his heart, the dagger that I had hidden in my skirts.

At first he smiled. ‘Nice try…’ And then his
face went deathly white and blood began to seep from his eyes.

The concoction that Arianne had used was like
milk and honey compared to the ones from our own garden: Witch’s Bells, the
beautiful purple flower. I had laced the dagger with its nectar. The same
flower I had been preparing to use from the time we departed for Dalmatia. I
had made that decision alone without Gabriel knowing.

Blood poured from Lewis’s mouth and then he
collapsed and lay still.
His eyes red, his body stiff.

This would not kill him but it would take days for
him to repair himself. It was little known to anyone who had not read the books
that such a plant could have an effect. I carried many secrets
now which
I would choose to impart when the need arose.

I made haste to leave the dungeon forever and
could think of nothing but my daughter’s safety and to be as far away from this
castle as possible. I would find Oleander and I would hide. I knew other things
too. I could eat certain plants that would kill my scent to a strigoi. If the
documents were correct, we could hide for years.

I found the witches cowering in their rooms.
They knew they were now in danger. I instructed them to leave handing each of
them gold pieces and jewellery given to me by Lewis. They would at least have
the money to buy peace for a while. I told them to be strong, to take heart and
to never return. They said that they hoped to see me some day and we hugged our
goodbyes. I told them my secret of the plant that would keep them safe from
being hunted by Lewis who would be seeking revenge on me. This plant much later
I would learn would keep witches safe but would also phase out our kind. Such a
secret would segregate us from knowledge and our origins, and those of the next
generation kept ignorant of their potential. And when betrothed to humans they
would gradually weed out their witch blood.

I had to travel fast. Some of the strong
strigoi would probably be alerted to my drastic action and perhaps even Gabriel
would know. I would call to him to find his location.

Gabriel

I sensed her. Something had changed. Lewis was ill
and she was the cause. Other strigoi had sensed it too. They were coming for
her.

Ahead of me I had picked up Oleander’s scent
but I turned back towards Lilah who was now in grave danger. It was a matter of
life and death for both of them, their lives in my hands.

I ran through the winding trees, across brooks,
my feet touching nothing but air. The birds were calling to the rising sun and
I ran into its light, the brightness of which burnt my eyes.

In a small clearing among the giant firs, my
beloved stood. The light behind her made her appear incandescent, but
this vision was marred by her assassins
, and her chest rose
and fell with heavy breaths of fear.

‘Stop!’ I yelled.

But they ignored me and the two were closing in
and then pulling her down to break her bones.

She did not cry out but looked across at me,
her eyes large.

Find Oleander, please.

Not without you.

And then I charged knocking them both to the
ground. The accomplice strigoi, Renee shrieked and flew at me like a bat. I
shielded against her battering with my shoulder throwing her backwards against
a tree, her arm broken.  Lilah lay motionless, her dress torn, and arms
and face scratched. I saw that she had been bitten and would quickly need
healing before she bled to death. But another blocked my path.