Vampire Love Story (14 page)

“The prophesy? What the fuck are you talking about?”

“The Children of the Night’s prophesy.”

I got up and put my jeans back on. Having someone tell you they were going to kill you sort of dampened the mood. “Sure, of course. That makes a tremendous amount of sense. Look, I was about to make love to you, and now I’m seriously thinking I have to stick an entirely different kind of stake in you. Start talking fast, or tonight’s about to get real ugly.”

I glanced around. I didn’t have a stake. Would a toothbrush do?

God, listen to me. I’m going nuts.

“Atticai, Mesha, Wyatt, and I were all given the same prophetic dream. The four of us didn’t meet by chance. The Triat brought us together through dreams.”

“This just gets better and better. What was the dream?”

“The four of us were given the same vision in our dreams. This was fifteen years ago. We all had the same dream to meet on April 18, 1995 at midnight. We were to meet and form a clan called Children of the Night.”

“So you’ve known Atticai for fifteen years now?”

“Not quite. In the mid-eighteen hundreds Atticai and I were in a giant clan on the east coast. So I met him first during the Civil War.”

“The Civil War?”

“Yes, Josiah.”

“You have got to be kidding.”

“Josiah, I was born October 18 1673.”

“You need to give me a moment here. You are over three hundred years old?”

“I look pretty good, huh?”

“I’ll say. Okay, so you and Atticai were in some giant Mani vampire clan during the Civil War? Just saying that out loud makes me think I’m crazy.”

“You’re not crazy, Josiah.”

“Says the girl who calls herself a vampire. Go on.”

“A Mani.”

“Somehow that sounds even crazier. Anyway, go on.”

“Atticai was the head of our clan. There was a Mani named Krull who didn’t like the way Atticai ran things. Believe it or not, Atticai is not about death and destruction. He defends and protects the will of the Triat, but ultimately he is a peacemaker.”

“Sure, he seemed real peaceful when he sicced half the rattlesnakes in California on my ass.”

“I can see how you would think that, but the will of the Triat is what makes him a killer. Mani such as Krull are the real killers. Such Mani are the reason why we often get referred to as vampires—and why so many Tandra—humans—have died over the years.” She paused and sat back on the bed. God, I still wanted her. Did she really just say she was going to have to kill me? She went on, “Krull and others like him
want
the Tandra to discover our world because then they have a license to kill. Atticai knew that’s what Krull and those who followed him were doing. Atticai put a stop to this, until Krull’s legions rose up over Atticai’s clan, and Atticai—and many others—were forced to flee.”

She paused and studied me a moment longer. Her eyes were so damn hard to read. “Josiah, there is a whole world of Mani out there that want to destroy all Tandra.”

“Where do werewolves—the Carnis—come into it?” I discreetly moved over to my bag, where I had packed a pocketknife. I wasn’t going down without a fight. Even if I had to fight a female vampire.

Yari said, “The Carni are their own species and are equally protected by the Triat, although they have their own set of rules. The Carni have less rules to live by and are in constant opposition of the Triat.”

“Why doesn’t the Triat just have them killed off?”

“It doesn’t work that way. The Triat works through us and the only way the Carni will be destroyed is by the Mani.”

“Okay, that’s pretty heavy.”

“And that’s where the Children of the Night come in. For hundreds of years there has been a prophesy. A Mani that will be so powerful, so pure, that he will return order to the orderless, that he will bring beauty back to us all so that we can live in peace.

“After Atticai, Hector, and Wyatt, and I all received our visions, we were told to form a four-person clan, or a cell. Once done, the next step would be revealed to us in further dreams.”

“And was it?”

“Yes.”

I nodded, guessing this part. “You dreamed of Atticai being the Chosen One.”

She shrugged. “Perhaps. There is no face to the Chosen One. At least, not yet.” Her eyes narrowed as she studied me. “Why do you think it’s Atticai?”

“It makes sense. He fights for humans—well, for the most part—and he’s a Mani.”

Yari continued studying me, then finally said, “Unfortunately, there’s nothing pure and beautiful about Atticai.”

“So you don’t think it’s him?”

“It does not matter what I think, Josiah. I am a very small fish in a much bigger pond. Anyway, most people think it’s going to be Atticai. Already he is prepping to harvest a virgin on her twentieth birthday. When he does so, he will, according to legend, transform into the white eagle.”

“White eagle?”

“As you know by now, all male Mani transition into ravens and the Mani women into hawks. The Chosen One, however, will transition into a white eagle.”

“Er, what exactly do you mean by
harvest?”

“A Mani will drain all the life-blood of a Tandra—or Carni, for that matter.”

“Yeah, Atticai’s a real saint,” I said sarcastically, shaking my head. “So who’s this virgin that Atticai’s supposedly going to harvest?”

Yari was quiet.

I pressed. “There’s not too many virginal twenty-year-olds out there. Is he going to pluck a nun from a nunnery?”

“No. Our dreams were very specific on who the virgin is supposed to be.”

Confused, I looked at Yari and then it hit me. Everything now made perfect sense.

It was Lena.

“You’re talking about Lena, aren’t you?” I said. Shit, wasn’t it her birthday any day now?

“We all had same dream and the same vision, Josiah. In each of them, Lena fits the image of the twenty-year-old virgin exactly. And as her twentieth birthday has come closer, the dreams have been out of control for us. Now we dream about what is to happen nearly every night. And just recently there has been something else added to the dream. A new twist, so to speak.”

“And what is that?” I asked.

“There this strong presence of
evil
. In the dream, Atticai is freeing us all by receiving the necessary blood. But there is an evil presence interfering that we can’t quite make out. We’re not sure if it is a fallen Mani or Carni. But there is something there, and it is very evil and we are all on guard because of it.”

“Does Lena know any of this?”

“She knows only that on that special night she and Atticai will be joined together throughout all eternity.”

“But in reality, she’s not. In reality, Atticai is going to kill her.”

“Atticai is going to fulfill the prophecy, Josiah. He will then save the Mani. He will fly in as a white eagle. It has been prophesied for thousands of years. Do you understand how lucky each of us is to be asked to be a part of it?”

“About as lucky as a heart attack. And what if it doesn’t go according to plan? What then?”

“It has to come to plan, Josiah. Everything needs to come to pass. Every detail all the way down to whatever evil that needs to be taken care of.”

“Are you still planning on killing me?”

Yari stood up and came over to me. I slipped my hand in my bag and grabbed the knife. Woman or not, she was a Mani, and I knew these things were tough as hell.

She said, “If I was, I wouldn’t have told you everything.”

“Maybe you told me everything so it would make it easier to kill me.”

Yari’s eyes burned through me. I knew then she was in absolute love with me. Her love for me, I knew, was the only thing keeping her from attacking me, from fulfilling her obligations to the Triat. Still, I kept the knife in my palm.

“There’s nothing in this world that could make me harm you, Josiah.” She touched my cheek and I sensed real emotion from her.

I knew I needed to save Lena. But I needed more information. Everything I knew about how to defeat a vampire was from novels and movies. And, from what I was gathering, they had gotten things wrong. Dead wrong.

There was no doubt I cared for Lena. I wanted to save her from this crazy shit. I could give a damn if the Mani and Carni lived in peace or not. But what could I do? The only thing I knew to do was to make sure that there was no way Atticai became the Chosen One.

I slipped the knife in my back pocket, leaned in, and put my hands around Yari’s waist. I pulled her in close and looked her in the eye. “But what if I wanted to harm you though?”

“You want to harm me?” she asked with a soft and sexy voice.

“How would a Tandra have a chance against a Mani like yourself?”

She studied me a moment, obviously debating how much to tell me. Finally, she said, “There are a number of ways a mortal could defeat a Mani.” Yari kissed me gently on the lips. “Why would you want to harm me?”

“Not you,” I said, but that’s all I would say.

She looked at me for a long time, keeping me at arm’s length. I could sense her inner conflict. After all, why should she tell me their deepest secrets? Did she trust me? And why should she trust me? Hell, just a few minutes earlier I was preparing to fight her. Eventually, she shrugged and pulled me in close. When she spoke, she did so in my ear. “You defeated Atticai last night. He was forced to transition to escape. I’ve never seen that happen before. Not from a Tandra.”

“How would I protect myself against your kind?” I asked.

“There is no protection, but there are two ways to defeat us.”

“A stake?” I offered.

“A
silver
stake,” she corrected. “And you need to pierce a Mani so completely that it goes in through the front and out through the back. Complete impalement.”

I shuddered. “So it doesn’t have to be through the heart?”

“If you want maximum chance at a permanent kill, then yes, through the heart.” Yari reached down and began unzipping my pants with her left hand while we still bantered face-to-face. Within seconds she had me free and in a tight grip, and after three hundred years, well, let’s just say she was very good at what she was doing.

“And what’s the other way?”

“Excuse me?” Yari had clearly shifted her focus to something else entirely.

I gasped and actually panted. Jesus, she was good. “What...what is the other way a Tandra can defeat a Mani in battle?”

Yari turned me around and sat me on the bed. She lifted a leg and was soon straddling me. Within moments, I was completely inside her. She leaned in and our bodies began moving in a slow, sensual motion.

“Well, Josiah,” she said, her voice husky in my ear, “the other way is to pierce a Mani’s neck from one side to the other with just about anything. Such a wound prevents us from transitioning. A Mani, you see, needs maximum air capacity to transition. After just a couple gasps, a Mani will be done.”

“Done?” I asked, wondering if she meant dead.

Apparently so, because she said, “So there you go, Josiah.
How to Kill a Mani for Dummies
. Just don’t let our secret out, or I really
will
have to kill you.”

She grinned and kissed me deeply and I wondered how much of what she was saying was true. Had she really given me the recipe for defeating her kind? I didn’t know, and I didn’t have much time to ponder these questions, because soon Yari was doing things to me that I swore I would never repeat to anyone.

And I’m a man of my word.

* * *

When we were done I laid on the bed and looked at the clock. It was 10:00 p.m.

“Isn’t tomorrow night the big night?” I asked, when my head finally cleared. “Isn’t it Lena’s birthday in twenty-six hours?”

Yari was curled up next to me. Her body was warm, which went against everything I had heard about vampires. Hey, trust me, I was glad she was warm. The last thing I wanted was something cold and dead lying next to me. She was staring at me intently, while I looked up at the ceiling with my hands behind my head. She nodded. “I’m going to fly back soon.”

“As the crow flies?”

“As the hawk flies,” she said, pinching me. “Crows are vile.”

“What’s the difference between a crow and a raven?”

“Do we really want to talk about it?”

I shrugged. “Probably not. So does it really have to be this way?”

“What way?”

“The sacrifice and all the bloodletting, or whatever it is, that Atticai plans on doing to Lena.”

“Yes, Josiah.”

“And where is it going to take place?”

“It’s only going to be the four of us and Lena. We’re going to do it at the old Savoy Ranch. That’s where it is in the dream.”

“Savoy Ranch is popular with hikers and campers. Aren’t you afraid someone will see you?”

“Josiah, we are not afraid of anything. And don’t get any ideas. I’ve spared you tonight. But if you want to live you will stay here and wait for me. Once Atticai becomes the Chosen One he might show you clemency. That’s what I’m hoping for, at least. Otherwise, you’re going to have to spend the rest of your life on the run.”

“Great. I’m once again at Atticai’s mercy. I saw what his mercy did to me the last time.”

I rolled over and pretended to go to sleep. Like hell I was going to stay here. I’ve never run from a fight in my life, and no seven-foot goon, especially a goon I had already choked out, was going to stop me from helping a girl I cared about. Once Yari left I had about 24 hours to convince Lena not to trust those bastards.

Minutes later, Yari kissed me gently on the head. She opened the window after first peeling off the tape. I cracked an eye open and watched as she transitioned back into Daphne and took off out of the window. In a flash of wings she was gone, and, as I stared at the window, all I could think of was that I just watched a person turn into a bird.

I decided to wait about an hour just in case she decided to come back for any reason. As I waited, I gathered my stuff and left $200 on the bed with a note saying we were sorry for leaving early.

An hour later, I was stowing my things in Tommy’s Mustang. I had a brief moment when the pain of his passing hit me hard, and I covered my face and sobbed hard into my hands. Through all this madness, I hadn’t even had time to mourn Tommy. He had died only three days ago. Unfortunately, I was now caught up in a world that I needed to fix.