Follow and respect the rules of The Dictum.
I stood on the porch of his decrepit house, staring at the sky. I had about three hours until sunrise. That was enough to get as far away as possible from this stinking town. It didn’t matter if he came after me or not. I was done with him and I needed to get back on track.
I stepped off the porch and began walking across the front lawn when I heard the sound of the front door opening.
“I will kill you!” I heard him screaming after me.
I shook my head, surprised that somehow he managed to get enough energy to stand on his feet and pursue me. “Yeah, sure you will.”
“Don’t walk away from me!” I heard him shuffling his feet through the grass and I turned around.
Blood poured from his mouth, and as he spoke, some of it splattered the air around him. “I trusted you!” I stood still and let him catch up to me.
“Your mistake.” I pushed the stake further into his body and muscled him onto his knees. I punched him as hard as I could across his face. I saw the muscles underneath his skin shifting as his eyes rolled back into his head at my unexpected blow. Now, helplessly on his back, I crouched over him, staring at his bruised and battered body. “If you loved her so much, you should’ve sired her.”
“I’m not a murderer,” he choked.
“All Deamhan are murderers.” I pressed the wood further down. He looked back up at me with widened eyes and wrapped his hands around the stake, trying to yank it free.
“You just don’t know it yet.” I increased the pressure, feeling the wood slowly burrowing into his flesh and out through his back, impaling him to the ground.
“You’ll understand that one day, Nash, and when you do, you’ll thank me for it.” Standing back, I marveled at my crude creation of torture.
“Kill me,” Nash demanded in a grunt. He held out his hand to me, like I was supposed to take it.
“Goodbye, Nash.” I turned to walk away, but stopped.
A gust of wind slapped me on the back of my neck, followed by cold hands that clasped me by my shoulders. Before I knew it, my body was traveling through the air, and colliding into a nearby tree. The blow stung me and I had no time to react. I was lifted again and felt a forearm wrapping around my throat. I couldn’t catch the scent at first, but I knew that whoever it was had to be ten times stronger than I was at that moment. Again, I went flying through the air, landing on the grass just a few feet from Nash. I tried to lift myself up, but felt the tip of a sharp boot connecting with my midsection, and my body flipped upright. That’s when it hit me. Selene and Lucius had found me.
I spat the dirt from my mouth. Selene, my sibling, was the only Deamhan who had the nerve to strike me with such force. As I mentioned before, her strength outsized my own, so there wasn’t any way I could escape her attack. She stood over me, gazing at me with eyes black as night, before grabbing me by my neck, and lifting me up from the ground. My neck over-extended beyond normal and the pain made me dizzy.
Still, my eyesight was not affected. Dressed in a black cloak with the hood resting on her head, she snarled. Her eyes, filled with anger and rage, narrowed and her bright red-colored hair contrasted against the darkness around us.
She didn’t bother hiding her thoughts. In her mind, I betrayed our sire, the one who gave us immortality. According to her, that’s the worst thing a Deamhan could do so I didn’t deserve to live. She hated me when Lucius sired me and she hated me even more now. Nothing I could do or say would ever change that.
However, deep down, she also feared me, and knew I had people who’d follow me to the death. When I ruled Minneapolis, she didn’t make any attempt to come and rescue Lucius. She stood by the sidelines, and threatened me with a Decretum, which, upon consent of the other Ancient Deamhan, decreed that they would overrun the city and dethrone me. All I had left was my willingness to show her that I wasn’t just some Deamhan she could manhandle at will. I needed to fight back.
Holding onto her wrist, I began to pry her clammy hands off my throat, digging into her arm. She reacted and snarled. I jerked forward, head-butting her. Quickly, she let me go and I landed onto my feet.
I jumped on her, but she easily threw me off. I tried avoiding her in Deamhan speed, but each time, she blocked my way. At that moment, I smelled another scent, Lucius’s scent, floating through the air. He moved in so quickly, I didn’t see him coming. I couldn’t see anything, but felt the force of his fist on my cheek as my head crashed back into the dirt.
He also didn’t bother hiding his thoughts, which were brimming with vexation. Because of me, he became a prisoner in Limbo, banished there to spend eternity among the Pure Ones of our kind. I wanted to see him suffer like I did when he chose the human over me.
I pushed myself up from the dirt and wiped the grains of it from my face. “What are you waiting for?”
I didn’t see an ounce of movement from underneath his long, black trenchcoat. His eyes weren’t black like a Deamhan in the midst of a fight or feeding, but hazel; like a human’s. Slowly, he walked over to Nash who still remained helplessly impaled on the ground.
“This is your child.” Lucius reached down and grabbed the wood, easily removing it from Nash’s stomach. “This is the one you refused to tell me about. The one that I never questioned.”
Surprised, I watched Lucius helping Nash to his feet.
“And you’re torturing him?” His eyes scorned me.
I took a defensive stance; my body hunched forward, my arms at my sides, and my eyes locked onto all three of them. “He’s not my child,” I replied. “I broke our bond years ago, just like I did with you.”
Lucius asked Nash. “Would you die for your sire?”
I huffed. What kind of question was that?
Nash looked at me briefly before turning back to Lucius. “I wouldn’t die for a murderer.”
“But he’s your sire?” Lucius questioned.
“He killed my Carol.” Nash shook his head. “Never.”
Selene smacked her lips. “I told you, Lucius. Nothing good would ever come out of Kei’s lineage.”
“But he’s proof that you’re wrong, Selene,” Lucius said. “His thoughts, about his human, aren’t hard to miss.” Lucius gazed into his eyes for a few moments. “He would have died for her, like I would have died for Caroline.” He continued to read Nash’s thoughts.
“He disobeyed the Dictum rules by helping his sire,” Selene said. “He should die.”
Lucius turned to Selene. “He served his sentence with the death of his human.”
Gripping his stomach, Nash nodded enthusiastically.
“You’ll leave Forsan. You’ll leave this country. You’ll leave this continent,” Lucius said to Nash. “If you don’t, I’ll return to kill you.”
Stunned, Nash said nothing. He took a few steps back. I saw dread in his eyes when we made contact and I knew I would never see him again. Whatever else Lucius said or showed to Nash must have scared him enough to leave his land, something he swore he would never do. He turned and took off in Deamhan speed, disappearing from my life forever. Finally, they both turned their attention to me.
“That Deamhan reminds me of your minions,” Selene said with a smirk on her face. “Just like the one who tried to kill Veronica.”
“Which one? I have so many,” I joked.
“Not anymore,” she replied in a cool voice. “Murphy was the one you considered special and above the rest, right?”
Murphy. The last time I saw him, I sent him after Veronica. I knew he failed when she showed up at my Gathering, but I never knew what happened to him.
“But I know,” Selene said, reading my thoughts. “He squealed like a rat when I rammed a stake into his heart.”
“Stake? He was human.”
She shook her head. “Not after Anastasia had her way with him.”
“I don’t care about dead humans.” I shrugged.
Lucius started walking toward me and I watched his feet as they seemed to slide along the ground. “She told me you would come back here.”
She? I had no idea whom he referenced.
“You’re an animal with familiar habits, Kei.”
“I can’t say the same about you,” I said.
“I would have forgiven you.”
“Forgiven me?” I laughed at the thought. “Your stint in Limbo didn’t change you one bit, did it? You’re still the sissy type who believes that Deamhan can live among humans. You’re the one who fell in love with that woman, choosing her over your own kind. Because of your poor choice, I had to step up and run things. I had to watch out for all Deamhan in the city!”
“Emotions are something that Deamhan have struggled with since the Pure Ones walked the earth,” he said. “We think that once we’re turned, we have the right to abandon our humanity because we’re no longer human.”
“Damn right.” I spat on the ground.
“But as you can see, we can still love,” he said. “We can hate. We can kill. We can feel pain. We have emotions, Kei. It’s our choice whether we ignore them or not.”
“And I choose to ignore them.”
“And that’s why you’ve struggled. I loved you like my own son. I loved you and still, you just couldn’t accept that. You had to have more. You couldn’t live knowing that I could love someone besides you or Selene.” Lucius lowered his head. “You repaid me by betraying me. You let your jealousy overcome you. If jealousy isn’t a human trait, then I don’t know what is.”
I expected something harsher, but not a fatherly figure type of spiel from him. But no. Nothing. I also expected Selene to do most of the talking and intimidation. She could never keep her mouth closed when it came to family matters. Instead, she remained quiet as Lucius persisted in his stupid attempt to educate me.
“For the love of God, just kill me now,” I said in a whiny voice. “I don’t think I can take this lovey-dovey crap anymore.”
“But that would be too easy,” Selene spoke. “And she wants you alive.”
She? Again, I didn’t know to whom they referred.
“You’ve angered powerful Deamhan, Kei. You’ve gone so far that not even I can save you if I wanted to.” Lucius raised his head slowly. “You’re going to die, but not tonight. Soon.”
Swiftly, I saw the color of his eyes starting to change. Any other time, it wouldn’t have surprised me, but now, the change wasn’t something I’d ever seen before. The whites of his eyes filled up like liquid being poured into a cup. Soon, instead of staring into black eyes, I was staring into eyes the color of blood.
No Deamhan in the world possessed such an ability. Our eyes always changed to the same dark, murky color. The only Deamhan who had eyes red like blood were the Pure Ones, and they were still in Limbo, locked tightly away by dark magic.
It couldn’t be!
A light switched on in my ravenous head, signaling fear and anxiety. Something happened to my sire in Limbo, something that I couldn’t explain. Just by staring into these soulless eyes, I felt myself shivering and got this uncanny, but undeniable urge to drop down on my knees in servitude.
Did Amenirdis do that? Or is Lucius… Amenirdis? Or maybe did she somehow piggyback with him out of Limbo? If so, did the remaining seven Pure Ones escape also?
I didn’t know what to think anymore. I couldn’t think anymore! There was nowhere for me to run and hide. Wherever I went, he-she would find me. I couldn’t fight against a power like that. I stood up to a lot of people and things in my life, but this was a lost cause.
He was right. Death would come for me soon, but I didn’t fear it. I actually welcomed it and hoped that he would kill me now. I wanted the easy way out, instead of living in a world with a pissed off Ancient who was backed by the darkest magic.