Chapter Four #6

The beat of the drum lulled me into a state where I felt my presence was no longer attached to my mortal form, but floating outside of my body. My soul hovered forward through a tunnel, racing forward to a stream of light.

“This is what must be done, Illari.”

Red smoke filled the sky, blazing against the murky sunset. My husband and I stood at the edge of a pool, connected to a shimmering waterfall. Redwood trees grew around us. The forest was quiet, waiting for an impending doom to swallow us all whole.

Both of us were dressed in the respective Elder regalia of our tribes— he, Koigni, and I, Toaqua. A monstrous brown wyvern flew overhead, keeping watch as to warn us if someone was coming.

In my hand I felt the cool metal of a key. And the heavy burden of what would come if I threw that key away.

“Soleil, you don’t understand,”

I insisted harshly in Hawkei. “This key— it can be used to cure the tribe of our problems. The Houses are already becoming divided. We can use the key to unite them again.”

“Our ancestors have made it clear. The key must be hidden within the depths of this waterfall, so that a new Toaqua chief may find it, and bring it to the ones who will use it for good,”

he insisted.

“This is a risk. There is already talk of separating the Houses. If sides are taken and lines are drawn, our marriage is at stake, Soleil! Fire and Water will not be permitted to be together!”

“We are responsible for this. We’re minai, ones who share a soul, and we are connected through one Familiar. This key has been given to us because of that gift, and it is our responsibility. We have to give up our lives, if we must, to keep it hidden from our enemies.”

“The prophet has seen what will happen to the tribe if we don’t use the key’s power to bring them together. The Houses will go to war, and our future Elders will sacrifice our children in a trial, so they can prove themselves worthy. We can’t allow that to happen!” I hissed.

“What will happen if that key isn’t hidden is even worse,”

he insisted. “Trust me, Illari.”

I trusted him with my life. Though I wasn’t sure if he knew of the consequences this would bring.

I tossed the key into the water. I watched it float down to the bottom of the pool, and along with it, the tribe’s future…

The vision changed. I found myself hurtling forward through the tunnel again, then coming to a harsh stop.

My hair was in a short bob, and the swish of fringe skimmed across my thighs as my flapper dress clung to my lithe form. The noise of a brass band struck up a jazzy tune as couples twirled on the speakeasy’s dance floor, and a couple of vamps at the bar ordered some illegal booze.

I was thirsty for blood, but that wasn’t anything unusual. I always thirsted for blood. What I was looking for tonight was a connection.

I skimmed the men in the room, but wasn’t interested in any of them. They were the same old vampires I’d been with a million times before, nobody interesting or new. This town could be a real drag.

“What are you here for, honey? A dame like you shouldn’t be drinking alone.”

I swished my cocktail as I turned to take in the person who’d spoken. His voice was like velvet, warm and inviting. He was a tall, handsome vampire, one with dark hair and even darker eyes.

Instantly, I felt my cold skin begin to warm with desire. My body responded to his without him having to do so much as look at me.

“You’re a sight for sore eyes,”

I stated, and took a sip of my drink. “Haven’t seen you around this shindig before.”

“Just got outta the pen, myself. One of my so-called pals ratted me out to the coppers.”

He gave a wink. “But between delivering shipments to the speakeasy, I’ve found time to call on sweethearts like you.”

I had to smirk. “Well, aren’t you the cat’s pajamas.”

“Lawrence, ma’am,”

he said, and he took off his hat to nod to me.

“Lucille,”

I purred. “And how do you know I’m interested?”

Lawrence grinned as he reached out and grasped me around the waist. He pushed me up against his bar, against his body, and I nearly writhed in delight.

“Come on, pidge. What’s a fella gotta do to take you out on a date?”

Lawrence smirked, and shivers rippled up my skin.

I didn’t know who he was, because I hadn’t met him before, but I didn’t care. There was something between us that sparked and said this was the guy for me. It was just what I needed.

“Follow me out to the back.”

I took his hand, and we walked through a secret door hidden behind the speakeasy’s stairwell.

We’d barely been alone for a few seconds in the alleyway before Lawrence gave me a rough kiss. I responded in kind, tearing at his suit jacket with my long nails and ripping it off.

Lawrence undid his pants, and hitched me up around his waist. He fumbled to push back my dress as he slid inside, and my head rolled back in ecstasy. He thrust into me, and I felt like the kind of connection we had could go on forever…

The vision abruptly shifted.

My hands were on a steering wheel, and a Model-T rocked back and forth as explosions rocked the car from side to side. I pinned the pedal to the floorboard, pushing the car as fast as it would go.

“Keep driving, pidge!”

Lawrence held on for dear life as we sped away. Masci Taurus had sent angels after us, and they were hot on our tail, chasing us with several cars. We’d been fleeing them for days, and hadn’t been able to shake them. I didn’t think we’d survive this.

We’d been doing this for a while now, Lawrence and I. Our specialty was smuggling things nobody else wanted to transport, and we’d spent the past few years making good money doing it.

Until we stumbled upon something we shouldn’t have. Something that was too strong for either of us to mess with.

I just wanted to pitch it. Get it away from us, before it killed us both. But Lawrence insisted we had to do the right thing, because this was bigger than us.

One last job, pidge, he’d told me. We get the vampire key to Europe, we dump it in the vault at the Banque Surnaturelle de Paris, then it’s easy street.

Beside him in the backseat, another vampire clutched onto an ivory box. My soul jolted as I recognized him, and in a thick New York accent, the vampire said, “This ain’t looking good!”

“Hold on, Mister Coffrey!”

I yelled. “This isn’t over!”

“Sure looks like it!”

the vampire responded.

“We’re gonna make it out of here, Frank!”

Lawrence cried, but I heard the fear in his voice. He knew this was the end of the line.

Magic exploded ahead of us on the road. I swerved to avoid it, and drove right into an oncoming battle orb.

Frank jumped out of the moving vehicle with the box and managed to roll safely to the side of the road, but Lawrence and I didn’t make it in time. The battle orb collided with the engine, and the car exploded. The screams of Lawrence and I mingled with the night as the flames instantly overtook the car, singing our marble bodies to ash.

My eyes shot open. I hurried to touch my skin, certain the flames were still licking up my sides.

They were gone. That had happened in the past, over a hundred years ago, and I was Ava-Marie now, not Lucille.

I managed to sit up. Charlie blinked a few times as he came to, and he instinctively reached for my hand. I took it. The feelings that flowed to him to me through our bond were powerful. We both remembered details of previous lifetimes, and though we couldn’t remember everything, I knew we’d loved each other back then as much as we did now.

Amber gasped above me. Her orangutan Familiar was slumped on the ground, taking shallow breaths.

“Are you all right?”

Wykoff asked in concern, and she laid a hand on Amber’s back.

“I barely got through,”

Amber said weakly. “The ancestors nearly didn’t respond to my request.”

She put a hand on her Familiar, to steady her. Undergoing the ancestral chant and calling to the ancestors for aid had completely worn Professor Amber out. What she’d done had been difficult magic. She must be a talented supernatural for her to pull this spell off, especially since she’d had to reach past the broken boundary between Earth and the spiritual realm for the ancestors to hear her.

Oberi had changed into her phoenix form sometime during the meditation. She blinked her cool eyes and ruffled her feathers, seemingly puzzled.

“I had multiple visions,”

I said, and I looked at my husband. “What about you, Charlie?”

“I did, too,”

he confirmed. “In the first one, we were Hawkei Elders. Oberi was there. We spoke Hawkei, and though I don’t know it, in the vision, I understood every word. We hid the key in a waterfall outside of Kinpago, because the ancestors had told us it would be safe there.”

“I experienced it just like you said,”

I added. “Did you see the second vision, during the 1920s?”

“Yeah. But we didn’t get to the end of that one,”

Charlie said darkly.

Hell no, we hadn’t. We’d died in a flaming car wreck. “Masci Taurus— the Warden’s father— he sent those men to kill us. He knew we had the vampire key. And that vampire who leapt out of the car with the key. Frank Coffrey— I remember his name,”

I said. “Do you think that was?—?”

“It was definitely Chancey,”

Charlie confirmed. “I felt it, in my spirit. He was helping us. He must’ve died at some point after he took the key. That’s why he’s reincarnated now, as an angel.”

“We were taking the key to some vault in Paris. Do you think Frank got the key to the vault before he died, or do you think Masci killed him first?” I asked.

“Either are possible,”

Charlie said. “We can’t be sure.”

“But we do know that in our previous life, we did our best to hide the vampire key,”

I insisted. “I think I can recall the name of the bank. It was the Banque Surnaturelle de Paris. We need to check to see if it’s still there now, and if Frank made the deposit.”

“I’ll tell my team to look into it right away,”

Charlie said. “At least we’re making progress.”

“I’m glad you guys got some clues. I didn’t see anything,”

Kallie said. “My mind was blank.”

“Marcus?”

I asked. “What did you see?”

He cleared his throat. “I… I saw…”

He jumped to his feet and swallowed visibly. “You know what? It’s nothing.”

Without another explanation, Marcus ran out of the training arena. Kallie’s expression became deeply concerned.

Wykoff helped Amber to walk, and the orangutan Familiar hobbled after. “I think we’ve covered enough today. Well done, Charlie and Ava. Hopefully this tip about the bank vault will lead us somewhere.”

“Are you going after Marcus?”

I asked Kallie as she stood. Charlie helped me back into my chair. Kallie paused for a second before shaking her head.

“No,”

she stated. “I can’t quite be sure, but I think whatever he saw has something to do with me. We still share a bond. And if I didn’t see what he did, that means he’s either blocking me out, or I wasn’t around to witness whatever he did back then.”

There were no clear answers, and until Marcus fessed up, we weren’t getting any.

Kallie walked away, and I looked to Oberi. “Did you see anything, girl?”

Glimpses and pieces of the past, she replied. But nothing that would help us, as far as I could tell.

“Shit.”

I sighed. “I wish this was easier. I want to find the rest of the keys and get this over with.”

You two think your quest is the hard part? This is merely the final step, Oberi said. You’ve been chasing keys throughout the millennia, spending decades, sometimes even your whole lives, to locate and hide these keys, only for you to find them at the proper moment at this shred of time.

“Were there any past lives for you to examine?”

Charlie asked.

From what I can piece together, I don’t really have a past life, because I’ve never truly died— it’s just one long continuation of this current life that I don’t fully grasp. I kept bouncing between Earth and the spiritual lands in your various lifetimes, Oberi replied. When you were Elementai, I came here to be with you on Earth, then once you died, and transitioned into new supernatural forms, I remained in the spiritual realm until you summoned me again as your Familiar. The constant go-between from one place to another has completely altered my memory. I can hardly tell what is real and what may have been made up. It is why I cannot give you any clear answers.

Oberi paused to contemplate. If I recall correctly, I went into a deep sleep before the two of you were born into your current lives on this Earth, and I didn’t awaken until it was time for Charlie to bond with me. Now we know why I was not there to defend you when you were children. I am very sorry, my beloved.

“Did someone put you into this sleep, or did you do it to yourself?” I asked.

I don’t remember anything about it, save for that I agreed to it. It must’ve been important. Oberi shook her head.

“What happened to us as kids isn’t your fault,”

Charlie said kindly, and he stroked her feathers back. “There’s a bigger meaning to all of this.”

Though I may agree, it does not dull the sorrow. Oberi flew onto Charlie’s shoulder and began preening his hair.

Charlie pushed me out of the training arena, and I gave a giggle. “We had some fun when we were a couple of horny vampires, screwing within five minutes of meeting each other,”

I cracked.

“In that lifetime, maybe, but we’ve been together forever,”

Charlie said. “It doesn’t take long for the two parts of our soul to recognize each other.”

My insides softened into goo. “We really have been together forever, haven’t we?”

Centuries, even, Oberi said. We cannot be aware of the time when our soul fragmented into two. We assumed it was at Charlie’s birth, but clearly, it was not. You two have loved each other throughout time.

If that didn’t make me all warm and fuzzy to think about.

“I’ve gotten to love you through multiple lifetimes, and in a million different ways,”

Charlie commented. “It’s incredible, really.”

I reached over my shoulder to touch his hand. “Well, no matter how long it’s been, I’m still your pidge.”

“I guess part of me from back then bled over into this life.”

Charlie gave a laugh. “Thankfully, that was the only corny slang I still took with me.”

“You’ve called me a dame before.”

“Yeah, I have.”

Charlie brought me to a stop before we got to his suite. “Do you think we should check on Marcus? He ran off after the meditation.”

“Probably. He was freaking out. Maybe if we talk to him, he can tell us what he saw,” I said.

We returned to our quarters and headed toward Marcus’ room. I heard a crashing noise long before we got to the door. The sound of things being smashed and torn apart echoed through the walls. My heart dropped.

“Marcus?”

I asked. I put a hand on his suite door. My spirit tore as I took in the sight of the destroyed room. Paintings were laying all around the room with holes in them, the canvases shattered and torn in half. It was a complete mess. My voice became still. I was unable to speak as I watched Marcus stomp one of his paintings underneath his shoe, and punch a fist through the canvas of another.

He’d been doing nothing but painting since we’d gotten to Ilamanthe, because it seemed to be the only thing that soothed him. Now Marcus was turning his treasured works into fragments, destroying everything he’d created.

“Marcus, stop!”

I cried. My shout mingled with Rishi’s yowls. The cat seemed to be pleading with his warlock to take a moment to think. “You’re destroying your paintings!”

“It doesn't matter! It’s all garbage anyway!”

Marcus raged. “My work sucks! It’s trash, just like I am!”

“Marcus, calm down.”

Charlie hurried forward and grabbed Marcus, holding him in place. Marcus tried to fight back, but Charlie was stronger than he was, so Marcus was forced to stand there and take deep breaths in the remnants of his self-created disaster.

Charlie kept his voice even. “Marcus, why did you do this? You worked so hard.”

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me!”

Marcus replied tearfully, and he shoved Charlie away. “Why don’t you just give up on me, huh? Why do you bother being my friend?”

“Marcus, of course I’m your friend. It’s okay.”

Charlie wrapped Marcus in a hug, and Marcus sobbed on his shoulder.

Marcus didn’t understand what was going on with him, but his meltdown was apparent to me. Whatever he’d seen in the vision had triggered him, and he’d been struggling with leaving the Institute worse than the rest of us had.

We all wanted out of there. Marcus didn’t want to stay a prisoner. But the Institute had sunk its claws into him. He wanted to be out, but he’d become so accustomed to prison life he’d forgotten how to live outside of it. He was struggling to adjust now that we were in Ilamanthe, and that stress was making him lose his grip.

“What’s going on?”

I heard Kallie’s voice echo from around the corner, and I froze. She walked in, and Marcus’ expression went from enraged to devastated.

Kallie took one look at the mess around the room. Then she pinched the bridge of her nose and muttered, “For fuck’s sake, Marcus.”

Her lack of compassion shocked me. Couldn’t she see how badly he was hurting?

“Kallie, don’t start,”

Charlie warned. “He needs us.”

She rolled her eyes. “He always needs us. You guys think it’s disturbing because this is the first time you’ve seen it, but this isn’t even the first time this week I’ve dealt with it.”

“So don’t,”

Marcus spat at her. “Leave me alone.”

“Like you mean that. You’ll be at my door in an hour or two with an apology, begging me to let you in,”

she sneered. Her words were so cruel.

“Kallie, why are you being this way?”

I asked. I sensed Marcus wasn’t the only one in pain here.

“Why shouldn’t I? Marcus showed up to my room drunk off his ass last night looking for a booty call!”

Kallie cried, flinging her hand out.

“It wasn’t like that! I just wanted someone to talk to!”

Marcus burst, and he staggered away from Charlie to face her. “Nobody understands how I feel!”

“And I’m here for you, but not if you’re going to show up completely wasted!”

Kallie said.