A Shade of Vampire 15: A Fall of Secrets (12 page)

I
t killed
me to leave Kiev, Rose and all the others on that island without my assistance. But I had to. I didn’t know how long it would take them, and Derek and Sofia—hell, this human realm—was now depending on me to find a way to get rid of Lilith. Enough time had been wasted already with the dragons’ stubborn insistence on flying instead of allowing me to magic them all there.

As I vanished myself back to The Shade, I just reminded myself that even I was not much use against the black witches anymore. I remembered how effortlessly Rhys had overpowered me. They had the dragons. I couldn’t offer any better protection than those beasts.

On arriving back in The Shade, I didn’t speak to anyone. I headed straight for Kiev’s and my treehouse. I walked into the kitchen and poured myself a glass of cool water. Swallowing it down in a few gulps, I wiped the sweat from my brow with a kitchen towel. My palms were cold and sweaty as I gripped the tabletop hard, my knuckles whitening.

How am I ever going to do this?

I had already told Derek that I knew little about Lilith. Yes, I had met her, but Rhys had deliberately withheld details about her. I left the kitchen and began pacing up and down the living room.

Think.

I spent years and years living with those black witches. During that time, I must have witnessed some conversation, picked up on some clue that could help me now.

Lilith. That abomination of a living being. How is it that she survived all this time when no other Ancients could?
I had a feeling deep in my gut that if I managed to answer this question, I would discover the key to Lilith’s undoing.

Time is running out. I don’t have all day to just stand here and pace.

There was only one thing to be done right now. I vanished myself from the spot and reappeared in the Sanctuary. Since I hadn’t yet set up a spell room in Kiev’s and my apartment, I had no choice but to use Corrine’s.

I began rummaging through Corrine’s shelves and pulling down bottles of ingredients. I reached for a medium-sized cauldron that was drying by the sink and began tipping substances into it. After adding enough liquid, I sped up the heating process until the potion had reached a rolling boil. I relinquished the heat and poured the liquid into a jug. Tidying up my mess in the space of three seconds, I left the kitchen, clutching the jug in my hands. I reappeared again in my apartment. I headed this time straight for the bedroom and placed the potion on my bedside table. I manifested a goblet from our kitchen and poured out one full portion. Then I climbed on top of the mattress and slid between the sheets, propping my head up so that I was sitting at a forty-five degree angle. I reached for the goblet and took a sip. The liquid burned my throat as it slid down.

As the memory potion began to take hold of my mind, I fixed all my consciousness on one single question:
Why is Lilith still alive?

My vision now beginning to cloud, I closed my eyes. I felt a tingling sensation in my head, like the feel of blood trickling beneath my skin. And then my present mind was no more as I was transported to the past.

I
t was
the beginning of a bright summer’s day, the best kind of weather The Sanctuary had to offer.

I sat up in bed, yawning and rubbing my eyes. I swung my feet off the mattress and padded over to the mirror in the corner of the room. I reached for my brush and began combing my long hair—as I had promised my mother that I would do first thing each morning if she allowed me to grow it this long. Then I walked into my bathroom and took a shower. I had to hurry. I was expecting my best friend, Rhys, to knock at my door early. He always did on the weekends, when we had no classes to attend.

Sure enough, I had barely slipped into my clothes and tied my hair up in a ponytail when there was a banging on the front door. I shot out of my room and whisked down the stairs before my parents or my siblings could answer the door. I always liked to be the first to answer the door to Rhys, because my parents made it no secret that they didn’t like me hanging around with him.

Rhys was standing on my doorstep, wearing a black shirt and shorts. He was barefoot. A mischievous grin lit up his face. “You ready?”

“Yeah,” I said, slipping out of the door and closing it as softly as I could behind me. We raced down the front steps, across the yard and out into the street behind the front gate.

“You should have been there last night,” Rhys said as we jogged along.

“Yeah, well, I think I’ll prefer it during the daytime.”

After picking up two of our friends along the way, we finally reached the graveyard. The main gates were still locked, so—still being young and not yet having mastered the ability to disappear and reappear in a different location—we climbed over them and leapt down to the ground behind it. Then we all set off running again, racing to see who could reach the back of the graveyard first. Rhys won, as he usually did. He was the fastest runner among us.

“Hey!” an angry voice called as we reached the back of the graveyard. “You don’t have permission to go there!”

I groaned internally. Shamus, the caretaker. The elderly warlock draped in a black cloak manifested himself in front of us. He blocked our way, waving a finger.

“We’re just looking around,” I said.

Before Shamus could react, Rhys darted between his legs and dove into a cluster of bushes. I wasn’t sure what to do. I didn’t want to get in trouble, but I also didn’t want to be left out of Rhys’ game.

I tried to follow after Rhys, but the warlock held me and my other two friends back, pinning us to the ground with his magic.

Rhys’ taunt filled the early-morning air from the other side of the bushes. “Come and get me.”

My eyelids fluttered as I came to consciousness for a few seconds. The first memory subsided. I sank under again…

The graveyard was pouring with rain, the skies overhead gray and cloudy. Crowds of witches and warlocks piled in through the gates. A new tomb was being installed here today—that of my friend’s grandmother, Hetia. Children were allowed to the front of the ceremony so they could watch what was happening, so my parents allowed me to push through the crowds without them. I joined my friends at the front and we all watched as a long black coffin was lowered into the ground. By the time respects had been paid, the rain was falling so heavily that the grave had become a pool of muddy water. Hetia’s family had to dry it out before they covered it over with a tombstone. Then they bent over the grave and began etching letters into the stone—ancient characters that I couldn’t understand at my young age.

I barely surfaced even for a second this time before another seemingly random memory took hold of me.

I was on my knees, a scrubbing brush in my hand, a bucket of soapy water set beside me on the ground. I looked around at the sea of tombstones surrounding me. I hated this job. I swore to myself that I wouldn’t misbehave in class again or do anything to deserve this punishment. It irked me that my other classmates had been misbehaving too. I had been unlucky to get caught.

I heaved a sigh, brushing my hair, sticky with sweat, away from my forehead as I continued scrubbing the Ancients’ tombstones. Some of them were so covered with grime, I was sure that nobody ever cleaned these things. Perhaps they kept them so dirty purposefully, so as to keep them as a worthy punishment for troublemaking children.

At least it was daytime. Although the sun beating down on me was making me feel nauseous, I was glad at least that I didn’t have to come here at night. This part of the graveyard, right at the back, always felt more haunted than other parts when the sun went down…

Now a fourth memory began playing in my mind’s eye.

I was drowning in a pool of rancid liquid. The more I tried to swim to the surface, the thicker the liquid seemed. Just as I reached the surface and gasped for air, something sharp and bony closed around my ankle and dragged me downward. I was pulled further and further into the depths of the black pool. My lungs close to bursting, I felt like I was seconds from death. But then I was met with an unexpected reprieve. My head was raised out of the liquid and I was able to breathe. Choking and spluttering, I tried to get rid of the vile taste in my mouth. Still in darkness, I reached my hands all around me, feeling stone.

I tried to push against the low ceiling, but it wouldn’t budge. Then there was a crack. A gap formed above me. I pushed against the ceiling once again, discovering that this was no ceiling. It was a lid. It slid right off, allowing me view of a clear night sky overhead. I heaved myself out of the liquid and found myself rolling onto grass. Looking around me, still shaking, I realized that I had just climbed out of a grave. I was surrounded by tombstones. I stood up and realized that I was in The Sanctuary’s graveyard.

I looked back at the grave I had just climbed out of. My voice caught in my throat as Lilith’s rotten face glared up at me, her beady black eyes gleaming through the darkness.

I sat bolt upright in bed, panting.

How could I have been so stupid? How could this not have been the first thing that occurred to me?

The graveyard.

When I had killed the Ageless, Lilith had taken me through some kind of portal connecting her rancid pool to a tombstone in The Sanctuary. A tombstone I now believed had been
her
tombstone. I couldn’t believe I’d had to take a memory potion to make me realize this. I supposed that this was an episode of my life that I had just driven deep into my subconscious and tried to forget.

Fighting off another bout of memories, I hurried to the kitchen and drank a large cup of water. This would help to dilute the potion in my system faster and return my mind to its normal state. I’d remembered enough, at least for now.

I entered the hallway outside the kitchen and stared at the front door.

I’m going to have to go back to The Sanctuary. And I’m going to have to go alone.

I grabbed a piece of paper and a pen and scribbled a quick note for Kiev. I knew how unhappy I would make him by leaving without him. But I simply couldn’t wait. After placing the note down on the dining table, I hurried back to our bedroom and pulled out the map I had procured of all the gates leading into this realm. After studying it for several moments, I had worked out the best route.

Looking around the bedroom one last time, I vanished myself.

A
rriving
on the beach outside the borders of The Sanctuary’s royal city, I shuddered. After my last visit here, I hadn’t ever expected to return. I scanned the beach. Nobody was in sight, but I made myself invisible all the same. I couldn’t afford to be spotted. Not now.

I walked across the sand toward the trees that lined the beach, where the boundary started. Once I could walk no further, I stopped and stretched out my palms. Being a Channeler, I hoped that I still had enough strength to bypass the boundary—something no ordinary witch could do. I was relieved when after about five minutes, I managed to. I could tell that they had put some extra reinforcement around the island since I’d last been here, but it still wasn’t enough to keep me out.

It was nighttime now and the forest was almost pitch black as I made my way toward the city. I could have magicked myself there, but I wanted to walk. I needed some time to clear my head and arrange my thoughts before thrusting myself right into the heart of the witches’ realm again. The trauma of my last visit here still haunted me.

I wondered what the white witches’ plans were now, after they had failed to protect The Shade. I wondered whether they would try to do anything further to stop the black witches. Whatever the case, we certainly couldn’t rely on it.

Although I was nervous making my way toward the city, I also couldn’t help but feel a sense of lightness. I rolled the ring on my finger. Whatever was about to happen, I didn’t believe that the pain could be any worse than when I was last here, when I had believed that I had lost Kiev.

Once I reached the first main street, I decided to travel the rest of the way by magic. I knew the graveyard’s gates would be locked at this time of night, so I reappeared behind them. It was uncanny being here now, when only hours ago I had experienced this place in my memories. As I looked around, it hadn’t changed at all—even since I was a little girl.

I took in the sprawling mass of tombs. The moonlight cast a pale glow down on them. I began making my way toward the back of the enclosure, past the newly departed toward the most ancient tombstones. These graves were larger and longer—much longer—than all the others in this place. I couldn’t count the number of graves that were here for the Ancients. There were far more than in the front area.

I slowed down as I caught sight of Lilith’s tomb about ten feet away. Chills ran down my spine, the hairs on my arms standing on end. As I neared it, I kept half expecting it to spring open. My nerves were grateful that no such thing happened. The tombstone looked quite dead, just like the rest of them. I placed my palms over the lid, running them over the moss-covered stone.

So I’m here.… Now what?
W
hat am I waiting for?

I knew why I was stalling. I wasn’t ready to find Lilith herself yet. If I did discover her now, I wouldn’t stand a chance against her. What I needed to do first was figure out how to destroy her.

Still, my subconscious had directed me to this grave. Perhaps I would find some clue by opening it up…

It didn’t help that it was the dead of night. An owl was hooting in a nearby tree and some kind of insect I couldn’t put a name to hummed eerily.

Taking a deep breath, I did my best to brush aside my fears. I got my fingers beneath the ridge of the lid and began to pull upward. It was stuck tight.

I took a few steps back, then began uttering a chant. I was shocked at how easy it was. After my first attempt at a spell, there was a crack and the slab loosened. My throat parched, I inched closer, bracing myself for what I was about to see. I bent down and pushed off the lid. It fell to the grass with a dull thud. I found myself staring down at a bed of soil.

I looked around the edge of the slab to check that I had gotten the right one. I had. This was Lilith’s.

I was still fearful, but I had come this far in opening up the grave, I wasn’t about to close it again without getting to the bottom of it. Using my magic, I dug deeper and deeper. Part of me was still expecting to reach liquid at some point, but there was nothing but soil and when I did finally hit something, it was the lid of a mahogany coffin.

I stared down at it. Then, holding my breath, I went the final step and popped open the coffin’s lid. It was empty. The sheet that had likely once enveloped Lilith’s body was crumpled up in one corner.

I’d come to this place in hope of finding answers, but now my mind was flooded with more questions. I could only conclude that the connection Lilith had made with this place had not been permanent and was created at her will.

Lilith had once been buried. Had she actually been dead? Or had she faked her death? I could hardly believe that it could have been the former. I didn’t think that it was possible to bring someone back from the dead.

Frustrated, I covered up the coffin with earth and replaced the slab.

What now? Go back to The Shade and try to invoke some more memories? Memories that might just lead me on another wild-goose chase…

I was beginning to feel more hopeless than ever. I found myself wandering around the tombs nearby, kicking dirt as I racked my brains for my next move.

As I walked along, my eyes fell upon the etchings on the graves. They were only just visible beneath the grime that coated all the Ancients’ tombs. The writing was old witch tongue.

The names of the witches within the tombs were scrawled in large font, and beneath them were lists of between three to five departed friends or family members. It was witch tradition to spell out which late loved ones one wanted to rest with after death. I walked back to Lilith’s tomb, curious to see whose names she had wanted etched upon her grave. Although I had visited this tomb before, at the time I had been in too panicked a state to pay attention to what was written on her grave. Heck, I hadn’t even made the connection that this was her grave to begin with.

I scraped away the moss, and was surprised to see only one name. And not even a full name. It just said:

“Magnus.”

As it was the custom to write both birth and death dates of the departed witch who lay within the tomb, it was also the custom to inscribe the birth and death dates of those loved ones whom they wanted to rest with.

I began scraping away beneath the name
Magnus
, now curious to see when he had lived.

But just as his name was incomplete, so were his dates. There was a birth date… but no death date.

Odd. Very odd.

Who was Magnus? I could only assume that the lack of death date meant that Magnus had still been alive when Lilith was buried. Although his birth date was far before even Lilith’s birth. He would have been a very, very old warlock.

I furrowed my brows, trying to recall if I had ever learnt in history classes about anyone significant called Magnus. I couldn’t.

I realized that I was procrastinating. I shouldn’t have been taking so much interest in something that was probably irrelevant, but right now I was parched for ideas, so I let my mind continue on this tangent.

I found it bizarre that Lilith would have requested someone to be written on her stone who was not even dead yet. I’d never heard of a witch requesting a living person to be written on their slab. That was considered bad luck.

My mind felt like one big jumbled-up puzzle. Too many pieces with no rhyme or reason as to how to put them together.

I have wasted enough time here already. I should just return to The Shade and try to invoke more memories that will hopefully be of more value than those graveyard ones.

Still, as I kept staring down at that single name with no death date, I couldn’t help but feel that this might be the closest I might come to a clue, no matter how many liters of memory potion I drank.