Mistwalker (37 page)

“You lie,” Jasper said viciously, slamming his fist down on the desk and standing up. “This is another attempt to gain more power.”

“Sit down.” Radu’s voice was calm and deadly. The whole room fell silent. “I have seen the truth of his claim with my own eyes. He does not
lie
. You think I would allow anyone to live with the mist?”

“She is strong,” the female troll spoke up with a squeaky, soft voice. “Even I can see that. I have read her file and am concerned with how this potential death may affect her mental state.”

Jasper slowly resumed his seat, muttering about the convenience of having a grandfather who was head of the Council.

“Whose death?”
Simone asked, at a complete loss.

Radu tapped a finger on an envelope in front of him. “Read this,” he said.

She faded the envelope to mist and reappeared back in her chair with the letter. Juliun’s arm wrapped around her shoulders, tight and secure. She opened the envelope with trembling fingers and read the words on the small piece of paper:

Tell the fortunate girl we have something of hers and offer a trade. All I want is the mist. If not, her mother dies in the next 48 hours.

Dravego.

A photograph fell out of the envelope and fluttered into Simone’s lap. She picked it up. Her face crumpled, and she shook her head.

“No. It can’t be.”

She tried to cover her face. A burning rage so swift and terrible boiled within her, and she couldn’t catch her breath. “I saw her die.
Her blood was everywhere.
She’d died.”

Her mother
.
So gaunt and weak in the photograph. An incredibly ancient version of the woman Simone remembered. “It’s her. It’s my mother.” The words were a sob from her soul, and she bent over, riding out the pain.

No one spoke. She lifted her tear-filled eyes, meeting the intent stares of the Councillors.

They were right to be worried.

Chapter
Forty

The photograph shook in Simone’s trembling fingers, and every moment that she gazed at her mother’s face filled her with such a bittersweet longing. “I remember that she was in the street, with blood everywhere. Who took this photo?”

“Take your time,” Radu said, softly. “Your memories are correct, but Carlo Ginati and Lorena turned your mother into a vampire with their blood. Dravego, as a psychic vampire, has the constant need to feed from people, and we believe he recruited Carlo and Lorena to find new sources the night they attacked you. It is a mystery as to why you were not taken.”

“No mystery,” Simone muttered. “What can a child offer?” Her mother was alive!
Alive.
The urge to escape the Council chambers right now overwhelmed her. Simone shivered, trying to quell her anxiety and looked at the door, then remembered she needed no door at all. Forty-eight hours was all the time she had.

Yet she’d signed a pact to never give another the mist.

Her heart squeezed. She looked back up at the Council members and knew they wouldn’t let her go. They didn’t understand. She’d never wanted anything so much as this.

“Lorena and Carlo wanted to kill me. They nearly succeeded. My whole life was shaped from their attack.”

“Lorena was mentally unstable. A serial child killer,” the troll female said with a sympathetic tone. “She
hated
little girls and young women, often killing those who looked similar to her, with the same hair and skin colour. The girls’ youth infuriated her for they possessed the most amount of life as she saw it. Their blood would rejuvenate her for a little, and then she always came back for more. Her orders were from Dravego though; she would never disobey him. He was the puppet master.”

“That is correct, Minna,” Radu said with a slow nod. “She stole all your girls one year.”

Minna’s eyes glistened, and her jaw clenched. “Took them from their beds in the dark of night and slaughtered them in the fields. They were helpless.”

Juliun’s hand clenched around Simone’s, and the feel of his strength steadied her. What had become of her mother?

“Would Dravego have drained her?” Simone asked.

Juliun leaned over and rubbed his hand down her upper arm. “Try not to think of that. We will get her back,” he murmured into her hair. “I promise.”

Simone smiled at him through her haze of tears, somewhat comforted by his support.

“We know she is a vampire.” Radu leaned forward, resting his elbows on the desk. “To live through what you have described, they must have turned her. However, we received
intel from various merchants that Dravego sold her to another clan when she was first turned. Dravego regularly held slave auctions, and by all accounts, to live that long under the Drachyn regime, she should be in a pit or dead. The explanation of being sold into slavery fits.”

“Oh, my God,” Simone moaned, holding her head in her hands.

“It could all be a trap. He might have taken this photo when she first turned,” Allegra said.

“No. She looked younger than this. What is this pit you speak of?” Simone could barely form the words with her throat locked so tight. Her mother was sold into immortal slavery twenty years ago!
A damn blood slave. No, Simone wouldn’t think of that. She couldn’t or she’d fall apart. She needed to focus on saving her mother, not on the past. But the raging inferno inside of her grew with leaping flames and hardened her resolve.

“When Dravego drains all the life force from a human or immortal, his followers throw them into what is called a ‘pit.’ A deep, dark hole far down in the earth filled with others who have also been drained. It is a very effective deterrent for mutiny,” Radu said. “Death can be quick or exceedingly slow. The drained ones in
the pit will eat and kill whoever else is thrown in there. Dravego found this more useful than killing them outright. It is hell.”

“How is it possible you have not caught him in all this time?” Simone leaned forward, glaring at them. “What have you been doing?”

Allegra grunted and hissed. “You have no idea, do you? Dravego has this perfected.” She sat up straighter, her face lined in a deep scowl. “Imagine the most perfect creature of your worst nightmares and you may come a little close. Oh, he doesn’t look like a monster, but he will leave you as one. He is over six centuries old. By all accounts, there is no limit to how much energy he can drain, and each time he does, he targets the smartest and most capable immortals in the world, moving around and using their skill and knowledge to best us. Without the mist, you would not last two seconds in his company. He is difficult to catch when everyone he disagrees with ends up as a zombie and thrown into the pit to be chewed to bits. Spies and armies have not worked.” She gestured wildly with her hand in the air. “He can tap into their minds and know their deepest thoughts. He has lairs all over the world. If we did not have vampires with the mist here, Dravego could walk in and suck our energy, and we could do nothing to stop him.”

The troll spoke up in her soft, squeaky voice, “He has taken many brothers and sisters from our camps over the centuries. Those families long for a proper burial. But we don’t know where he is, we don’t know where our brethren are. He has too much knowledge of the lands and the old ways now. All the energy he takes becomes his own. He has become too clever and virtually unstoppable.”

Simone shook her head. “He has my mother! He took her.” If she didn’t stop him now, then she was more or less telling Dravego to screw her over forever, letting him control her life.
No
. She wasn’t that little girl anymore.

Could she put her whole life on the line? Wasn’t she doing that anyway by doing nothing at all? It was easy to run until she was so backed into a corner that she was called to fight back.

She wasn’t whole, maybe hadn’t been for a long time, and she’d built upon despair as though that strength could sustain her. In truth, it made her weaker—all because it was based on fear. Believing that she lacked to begin with. She hadn’t been a whole human being, and tonight she was vampire with the mist who teetered on the brink of failure. It came down to a choice in the end.

She needed something new to build on.

“You’re wrong. I know it. This may be our only chance to trap him with using me as bait. He thinks this is his ploy to steal the mist, but we are going to destroy him. It is our ploy. I’m not afraid. I want my mother back, and I
will
get her.”

Allegra blinked. “Use you as bait?” She froze, about to reach for a drink. “Did I hear you correctly?”

“That’s right.” Simone lifted her chin. “It’s perfect. We set a trap, and he plays right into our hands.”

“Stop it, what are you saying?” Juliun’s hand clenched around hers, and he stared at her. “He is too dangerous. You cannot do this.”

“I’m saying he’s got my mother. I’m saying I’m going to stop him. We make a deal here and now though. I ensure Dravego is destroyed, and I get my mother back. I cannot be punished for whatever I do, even if it means breaking my blood oath.”

“You intend to give him the mist?” Samael asked. “Then I cannot agree. He would kill us all. Do not be so foolish.”

The werewolf and the fairy frowned and shook their heads.

Panic rose in Simone for she needed to convince them otherwise her mother would be stone cold dead within two nights. “I can’t say what I will and won’t do,” Simone answered honestly. “I am going to get her. I am strong enough with the royal blood. I have the mist. I have the most motivation out of all of you to succeed. Dravego wants me there. He won’t hide.” She looked the members in earnest. “Can’t you all see? I will not let her die. Think of how much he has taken from you. And you’re willing to let him take more?” She shook her head. “Not me. It stops here. I understand that now.”

“You are not going in there alone.” Juliun stood up. “Dravego has taken my father. Two is better than one.”

Radu rose from his throne. “Three.” His gaze rested on Simone, and she saw the unmistakable glitter of pride in his eyes as he smiled widely. He winked at her.

“Four,” a woman’s voice said from behind them all.

Simone turned to see Witch hovering behind them at the back of the room in a shimmery gold veil. She appeared to be almost see-through, and Simone could not pick up her scent.

“I see something terrible in our future if Dravego is not stopped. I am being urged most anxiously by my spirits that you should agree to this mission,” Witch said. “Simone is here for a reason. It is fate.”

Simone turned back to the unresponsive Council members. She jumped up and started pacing. Fiery intention burned within her, and she stated categorically, “Here’s the plan—I’m the bait. I have what he wants. He knows for a fact Radu and Juliun would never give over the mist.
But a newcomer?” She smiled. “He plays on my weakness, and I exploit his. He’s done what he’s done to her but that’s all. I want her back. Whatever it takes. Don’t agree, and I will do it anyway. I already have four of the strongest on my side.”

“Ruthless,” Samael whispered with a renewed appraisal. He smiled, but his stare reached all the way down to her soul. “Radu, you’ve been holding out on me. You realise it could be a one way mission. If Dravego manages to drain Witch and gets your blood, he will be unstoppable. He’ll kill immortals and humans alike. The world will be overrun. Species wiped out.”

“If what Witch says is true, they will be anyway,” Simone retorted. “Think on that for a moment. You have something better within reach, why don’t you grasp it? I’ll have Witch, Radu and Juliun. If you’re strong enough, step up to the plate, or get out of my bloody way. Don’t be such a coward.”

Samael stared at her with widened eyes, his mouth open, the veins encroached up to his eyes, spreading like black ivy.

Radu laughed, his head falling back with the force of his mirth. He levelled his gaze again at the Councillor, and his grey eyes glittered, so much like his grandson’s. “Yes, Samael. Decide.”

Oh, Simone was grateful to Radu. As the head of the Council, he must have some sway. Of course, he’d want Dravego stopped. He’d lost a son to the psychic vampire.

Dark, cold, rich power pulsed from Samael and flooded the room. He stood up, but it was his skin that shocked Simone. Black-like veins spread across every inch of his face. “Could never resist a challenge,” he drawled. “Five.”

The werewolf rose and thumped his meaty fist against the desk. Everything shook, including the floor. “Six. I swear every adult male in my pack to the task.”

Minna rose from her seat. “Seven. I don’t know what help we’ll be,” she said. “We are the dwellers and planters of the earth, but we’ll assist you in any way we can.”

“As will I and my clan,” Jasper said. His skin looked dry and uncomfortably tight. “If you need any help from the sea, we will support you. Eight.”

The elven leader stood up. His tall and robust figure dwarfed Jasper. “I’ve been waiting a long time for this.” He smiled slowly. “I can truthfully say that my clan would kill me if I didn’t swear their fealty. I would not stop them. Dravego will have prepared an army, but we are the oldest group of warriors on these lands.” His gaze rested on Simone. “Believe me; we have been perfecting the art of combat for centuries with every weapon imaginable. We have the strength, the skill and the numbers.” He stared at her curiously. “To have a newcomer who was human over a week ago be the catalyst to kill the one who has been taking our loved ones year after year with no end in sight truly humbles me.” He held out a fist. “Nine. To the death.”