Cherishing Destiny (A Dangerous Destiny) (36 page)

Olina began shedding her many layers of bundling.  “My
goodness, you’re fire is warm, and with the sun shining, I am roasting in these
things.  She had quite a pile going of various outerwear, scarves, and wraps. 

Greta waited patiently for her to finish. “Well, who would
have known there was a skinny old woman under all that?” She chuckled as she set
out a tray for tea. 

“Who you calling old, Greta? You gotta be three hunnert by
now, you old she-wolf.” Olina chuckled too. 

“Oh, ye may be right about that, but I come by it
natural-like.  I didn’t go making myself younger with the potions and the spells,
so I’d look seventy-five when I was a hundred and eight,” she quipped back.

“a hunnert and nine,” Olina muttered into her tea cup. 

“Well, happy belated birthday,” Greta said dropping into
her chair.  There was nothing wrong with her wolf hearing. 

The old women chatted, and Olina poked around Greta’s many
jars and bags and containers for herbs and other ingredients she could trade
for.  It was late in the afternoon when Olina made a startling discovery.  She
held up a glass jar of fine, brown powder, turning it back and forth in the
light from a window.  “Is this what it says it is?” she asked Greta.  She read
the label to herself again.  Vampire Placenta was what was written on the tape
stuck across the side of the jar in Greta’s spindly hand. 

Greta had dried the placenta she took after Destiny’s birth,
crushing it to a fine powder with a pestle and mortar.  She had used it
sparingly and still had a good bit left.  She usually didn’t leave it out when
Olina was coming, but she had forgotten.  “That’s all I have, and I’m not
likely to ever get any more, so ye can have just a little if that’s what ye want.”

“Where did you get it?” Olina narrowed her eyes at the old
Were
and didn’t let go of the jar.

“I helped birth the baby, and I kept it, kind of like a
payment, ye might say.” Greta justified.

“You birthed a Vampire,” Olina said incredulously, opening
the jar and sniffing the contents. Her eyes went wide and round. “Spirits bless
me! This was an old Vampire!”

Greta shrugged. “At least a thousand, I’d say,” she
answered, not aware of the implications.

“Greta, you don’t get it, do you?” Olina said moving to the
table and sitting down. “Everyone is talking in the villages about all the
Vampires that are getting pregnant, but also about the elders being upset or
some such because only the young Vampires are having babies.  The older Vampire
women don’t conceive, and the older Vampire men can’t impregnate, not even with
a young partner.” She shook her head. “No Vampire over two hunnert has caught
pregnant, and you say this Vampire was over a thousand.”

“I don’t know what to tell ye.  It were a fluke I guess,”
Greta said. 

Olina watched Greta suspiciously for a moment and changed
her tack. “Why would an elder Vampire use a
Were
-wolf midwife anyway?
Why wouldn’t she go to Syracuse like the rest of the elders and most of the
pregnant women, for that matter?”

“I don’t know what gets into the head of any Vampire, much
less an elder!” Greta raised her voice angrily. “How should I know why she
didn’t go to town, Olina? Do I look like a mind reader?”  She was nearly
shouting, and she looked up to see the young
Were
boy that did chores
for her standing in the doorway.

“Are you okay, Miss Greta?” he asked, looking from the
red-faced
Were
to the old human lady who was inexplicably smiling. 

“I’m fine,” Greta said with exaggerated calm. She brushed
at imaginary wrinkles on her skirt, smoothing it with her sweating palms.
“Excuse me for a moment,” she said and went down an adjoining hallway.  They
heard a door close softly.

The boy of about eighteen or nineteen, looked at Olina and
said, “I took care of your horse, Miss.  I’m all done with Miss Greta’s chores
too, so if you don’t need anything else, I’ll be heading home.”

“ Many thanks,” Olina said, looking at the late afternoon
sun slanting through the window. “Won’t you stay and start out fresh in the
morning?” she asked slyly.

“Oh, no, Miss.  Don’t worry about me. I’ll be home before
midnight,” he said smiling.

“Of course, I understand,” she said smiling back. “I always
like to sleep in my own bed too.”

She watched out the window, stepping back from the glass
into shadow, so she wouldn’t be seen.  The boy went to the edge of the clearing
and retrieved a small pack from under a tree.  He stripped naked and put his
clothes in the bag.  Then he almost seemed to be praying when he squatted down,
lowered his head and closed his eyes.  She could see him taking deep calming
breaths, and she watched, fascinated as he slowly transformed into a gray wolf
over the course of about two minutes.  The wolf looked strong and lean like the
boy, and he looked around the clearing with glowing, yellow eyes.  For a moment,
he stared at the window, and she felt as if he could see her despite the dark
shadow.  She held her breath and didn’t move a muscle.  After a moment, the
wolf looked away, snatched up the pack in his jaws, and leapt off into the
trees, disappearing in seconds. She let out the breath she was holding and sat
down at the table to slow down her racing thoughts. 

Greta as much as said that the Vampire birth didn’t occur
in a village, so that left the
Were
settlement or the wilderness, and
Olina was betting on the settlement because Greta also said she helped birth
the child, not that she did it herself.  Also, the fact that a Vampire elder let
a
Were
help birth her baby at all, said something about the relationship
this Vampire had with
Weres
.  It all added up, and the boy had told her
that he would be home before midnight.  So, six or seven hours of running as a
wolf, put the settlement maybe a day or day and a half on horseback from
Greta’s place.  Olina had a sneaking suspicion that she knew who the Vampire
mother was because a powerful Vampire, an elder by the name of Gates, was
posting her name and her husband’s all over the villages as traitors, and there
were allegations that the wanted Vampires were involved in a conspiracy with
Weres
of the wolf clan.  There was a reward, but she was not interested in the money. 
She would be bringing this information to the Mother, and she was sure that
Mother would be interested to know about the baby too.  She put a small amount
of the dark powder from the jar into an envelope and tucked it into a pocket. 
She stayed for one night with Greta and then made excuses to cut her visit
short.  

Olina rode straight past her village and continued to
Syracuse and then to the Mother’s compound at the rehab center.  She trembled
slightly as she stood before the Mother in the atrium.  The Mother sat in her
place at the edge of the pool and pushed the powder around in her palm with her
index finger.  She was looking closely at it and sniffed it.  She touched her
index finger to her tongue, tasting it.  She raised an eyebrow at Olina and
nodded in approval.  Olina had already told the story, and she had shared her theory,
but the Mother had not made any comment.  Olina watched as Mother leaned
forward and let the pinch of dust in her hand fall to the water where it
floated on the surface.  The water took on a black color and swirled underneath
the surface with and oily looking substance, then the area around the floating powder
began to bubble and ripples spread out across the water.  What looked like a
hand and arm sheathed in an oily, black glove shot from the center of the
churning area.  Olina thought she heard a voice underneath the noise of
bubbling water, but it was nothing she could understand.

Abruptly, the hand slid back, the water stopped bubbling
and moving, it stilled and then cleared as if nothing had ever happened.  Mother
was staring at Olina, and she was truly frightened but didn’t know why.  “The
spirits say this Vampire mother is powerful indeed and that the offspring
nourished in her womb from that blood mass will also hold considerable power. 
I have seen what my little Lana can do, I can only imagine that the child of an
elder would be formidable.  You will take Xavier, the one known as the Chief,
to this Greta’s home, and he will track the wolves to their lair.  The spirits
will reward you for your loyalty and your intelligence, should your theory
prove correct.” 

Olina felt as if she had been dismissed, but she couldn’t
make her feet turn and go just yet. “Mother, may I ask what will you do with
Greta?” She felt she had to at least ask about the woman she had known for more
than eighty years. 

“I won’t be doing anything with Greta,” Mother said. “What
happens to Greta will be entirely up to her.  She is a
Were
, and if she
threatens violence she may die, but if she cooperates with the Chief, she may
be spared.”

“I understand, Mother.  I will be ready to leave when the
Chief is.” Olina felt as if she pushed as far as she dared, and it would be up
to her to convince Greta to be accommodating if she hoped to see the old woman
live. 

∞∞∞

Mother sent for the Chief and spoke with him alone.  “I
don’t want to be implicated in this, so it is my intention to send Samuel’s men
with you to the
Were
-wolves.  They are Vampires and should be able to hold
their own.  I will reach an agreement with Samuel ahead of time with regard to
the mother and child.  He may keep the father.  I know that his grudge is with
Alexander anyway.  I just want the baby and Aurora, if she can be taken alive. 
An elder is not to be trifled with, and you will not take unnecessary risks
with either of the elders. Do you understand?”

“As you wish, Mother,” the Chief responded without
hesitation.

“Also, you may find the Four Walker there, but your vengeance
will not interfere with my plans.  If you have to chose, you will chose the
infant and save your revenge for another day.  Do I make myself clear?”

This time the Chief paused for just a quick second before
answering, “Yes, Mother. I understand perfectly.”  He didn’t dare disobey her
order, but the thought of sparing the wolf, who had wounded him so badly that
Mother had to transplant the eye of a Vampire into his
Were
-panther
body, was irksome, to say the least.  His scars had mostly disappeared, but his
missing ear and the bright blue Vampire eye next to his
Were
-panther
green-gold one was a constant reminder of his battle with the black wolf.

“Excellent!” She clapped her hands together for emphasis.
“Now send someone to tell Samuel that I need to see him immediately,” she said
becoming a cheery old grandmother again, instantly.  

Thirty
-nine

Samuel Gates wanted to ride at the head of the Vampires he
was sending against Alexander and the
Weres
, but he trusted no one with
the potion that had to be administered to the council so that he could maintain
control of them.  He had already had an incident, losing the Vampire, Reginald,
when someone else consumed his dosage for a few days.  The worst of it was that
Reginald broke out a
Were
spy and killed a guard while helping the beast
to escape.  Without a tracker, Gates decided that it wasn’t worth the resources
to continue the search.  Now the tracker was back, but Mother put him in
charge.  The Chief was another sore spot with Gates, and he was beginning to feel
that he was letting too many people get away with too much, that he was being
taken advantage of, and that it was going to have to stop. 

He watched as a small army of Vampires rode out on
horseback behind the
Were
-panther.  He’ll get his eventually, thought
Gates.  Mother had given him the information to find Alexander and then
informed him that she would be keeping Aurora and that there was a child, and
that child belonged to Mother, as well.  He had agreed out of necessity at the
time, but now he was not so sure he should just hand over a child of an elder. 
The child was unique in that no other Vampyrum had been born to a Vampire over
two hundred years old.  Surely the child of an elder, two elders most likely,
would be superior to the wild unruly toddlers that were now underfoot
everywhere he went.  He was in the process of having the home next door
renovated to provide a place for the children that was close enough for him to monitor,
but far enough that he didn’t have to watch where he stepped in order to avoid
squashing one of them. 

Mother would just have to understand that a child with the
potential of an elder would have to be studied and protected.  He knew that
Mother had sacrificed Vampires in the past, but he couldn’t let her sacrifice
the Vampyrum.  They might be the last hope for the Vampires if he could figure
out how to turn them, fully.   As he walked to his room deep in thought, he
stumbled over a small tricycle in the hallway.  Maybe Mother would consider a
trade of the one child for any of these others, he thought as he rubbed his
shin. 

forty

Mother was well into her preparations while Gates was whining
about his shin.  She had heard from two of her sister witches, and they were
set up near Chicago.  She had been planning this move for some time, but now
the timing couldn’t be better.  When the Chief arrived with the two prisoners,
she would be ready to go.  Everyone else was leaving now.  Her agents and those
of her sisters had been terribly busy.  Four large sailboats with crew had been
hired to carry Mother and her entourage from Buffalo to Toledo, where her
sisters would have an escort waiting to bring them to the outskirts of
Chicago.  The children and their nurses and nannies had already left with an escort
of Warlocks.  She and a few practitioners along with about twenty more Warlocks
were all that was left, and she intended to be gone with the women within the
hour, headed to Buffalo.  A dozen Warlocks would remain behind to escort the
Chief and his prisoners to the boats when they returned.  Before Gates or
anyone else was the wiser, she would be long gone with the leverage and power
she needed to bargain with her sisters.