Chapter Seven

My heart is light enough to fly

R avyn returned from her rest with her shield back in place, hiding every expression like she’d done in the early days when he’d joined the team, daring Bash to even hint at what had happened earlier. Following her lead, he stuck with business.

They didn’t mention the kiss.

Ravyn intently examined the crack in the window from every angle before murmuring, “Bigger.” Letting out a soft sigh of frustration, she picked out a jigsaw puzzle from the dozen or so that were packed away in the apartment.

Ravyn and Toby silently worked on the puzzle, quickly sliding the pieces together while her eyes scanned for the next piece. It was a wonder to watch how quickly the 2000-piece puzzle came together. Bash remained quiet as they all waited for what was to come. He continued to steal glances at Ravyn, uncertain if this changed things in any way. A small smile settled on her face while she worked, but Bash couldn’t bring himself to ask what it meant before her mask smoothed down her face once again.

She was right. As much as he hated to admit it, they were stuck in place. The closer they came to the full moon, the surlier his shifters got, and even the vampires hissed in anger if they walked too close to one another. They were all tired of the same walls and even with regular trips outside for the crew, it didn’t help Ravyn that she hadn’t been permitted to leave at all. If the stalker was hoping to wait them out, he was winning.

The hours ticked lazily by while the background checks cleared and Bash set up a meeting with Anya in an apartment below Ravyn’s. The furnishings would allow them to meet comfortably, and they wouldn’t be opening her door straight to any potential enemies. As hesitant as he was to bring a virtual stranger into the building, in the end it was the most secure way to do it, and moving from one location to another left Ravyn vulnerable out in the open. Although he couldn’t pinpoint it, he felt it in his gut that if Ravyn left the safety of her home, things would happen—bad things out of his control.

Ravyn’s home was already compromised if a witch were still spying among the reflections, but still more wards had been placed and they continued to cover every reflective surface in the rooms while watching the crack in the glass continue to expand ever so slightly.

Sebastian had taken over the arrangements, offering to send Oliver’s private plane to accommodate her, which Anya had graciously declined. Apparently, she enjoyed driving, and she wasn’t far. Her letter had suggested she spent part of her time in California and part of her time in the Midwest. Despite being an ancient, original vampire, she’d already proven herself different than most of the vampires they met, those who never declined any upgrades or red-carpet treatment. Usually, they demanded it.

A member of Ravyn’s security detail filled in playing doorman for the day. After a quick phone call verifying her arrival, the shifter escorted Anya to the elevator and, as planned, entered it with her to bring her straight to Ravyn’s temporary door. Someone had driven her, a tall, dark man who had lent her a proprietary arm getting out of the car and walking to the doorway. With a brief nod, he’d left her at the door but hadn’t driven off until she’d entered the building.

From his phone, Bash watched the camera as Anya shuffled through the hallway toward the doorway. Ravyn’s sister wasn’t what he’d imagined. In fact, if anything her appearance and mannerisms shocked him.

Anya accepted the cursory pat down, as well as a metal detector wand that flashed over and around her without complaints. She only carried a small purse; it didn’t even have an ID in it, just a few pictures that Bash hadn’t seen due to the angle of the camera, but the guard had shuffled through them quickly and offered them back with a polite thank you. Anya rewarded him with a serene smile, so much like Ravyn’s practiced smile it nearly bowled him over.

Too busy watching the exchange, not wanting to chance missing anything that constituted a threat, Bash didn’t notify Ravyn that her guest was five minutes early. Already anxious, she’d paced her faux apartment, carefully choosing a blood infused wine to offer her guest, while adjusting furniture and flowers that didn’t belong to her and closing blinds to filter the late afternoon sunlight. And, if he assumed correctly, counting, always counting.

“She’s here.” He spoke softly, knowing that Ravyn would hear, and at the same time, the “doorman” offered three sharp knocks on the door, another sign that everything looked above board. In a flash, Ravyn zipped from one room to another, before settling down on the settee and rising once again when Sebastian opened the door for her guest. Behind him he heard her lightly grumble, knowing that he blocked their view of one another, but best to put himself between the two just in case all wasn’t as it appeared.

“Welcome, please come in. I’m Ravyn’s friend, Sebastian Moldover,” he offered as he took a subtle sniff of the lady before him. She smelled pleasant, with just an underlying scent of sickness; puzzling, but his wolf actually hummed a bit in satisfaction. Another test passed, but it still didn’t explain everything. Vampires didn’t get sick, but perhaps her scent was just different and it registered in his mind as illness, and his wolf confirmed his suspicion. Her scent, however, was the least unusual thing about her.

Turning sideways, extending an arm in invitation, he said, “Ravyn, your guest has arrived.” With no chance to warn her that Anya might not be the sister she remembered, Sebastion had to hope that Ravyn had truly braced herself for anything. Over and over, she had refused to see or hear anything about her sister’s background check. It was either good to go or not. Cutting Bash off whenever he had tried to inform her that her sister might be different from what she remembered, had kept Ravyn fully in the dark.

“Sister…” The single word quietly escaped Ravyn’s mouth, followed by a small gasp, eyes widened as she covered her mouth with her hand.

For a split second, Bash was pleased. He refrained from grinning, but seeing Ravyn shocked even momentarily was a sight to remember.

Clearly, the older woman who stood before them wasn’t quite what any of them had expected. While Ravyn’s age had stopped a breath past her bloom into womanhood, one might guess her as twenty, twenty-five, or thirty, but this woman’s aging had surprisingly continued. Breathtaking beauties both of them, but a reflection of past and present. Ravyn’s black hair had been brushed to the point where it shone and flickered deep blue even in the dim lighting. Anya’s hair, nearly the same length and just as shiny, was almost as white as the moonlight that drew the wolves out. A few darker strands contrasted with the shimmering white, but they were rare. Far from an expert in human aging, if Bash were to guess, the sister who stood before him was well into her eighties or even her nineties.

Ravyn’s skin was olive-colored and smooth, the same as it had been the day she’d been turned, while Anya’s spoke of a life well-lived, wrinkles and grooves lining a face that was a shade paler than Ravyn’s. The laugh lines around her faded green eyes, which surely once had shone as brightly as Ravyn’s own, spoke of laughter and life as she patiently waited for Ravyn’s shocked perusal of her. Roughly the same height as her sister, sensible flat gray shoes encased her feet while Ravyn’s heels added a few inches to her own. Despite the silver cane in her right hand her posture was still rigid, and the elegant pant suit and simple jewels she wore spoke well of her financially, although so had the background checks, so that much wasn’t a surprise.

Anya spoke kindly, her voice slightly accented and familiar in tone. “Yes, dearest, I grew old.”

With a cry, Ravyn clutched the woman in her arms. Slowly, Anya returned the gesture and for several moments, they just held each other in the comfort of a sisters’ embrace.

“So beautiful,” Ravyn murmured as she ran a hand down Anya’s hair and face, her eyes still frozen open in wonder. “So beautiful.”

“As always, Little Bird, you are too generous.” The older woman clutched Ravyn’s arm, her wrinkled hand shaking a bit with the emotions of the moment.

Bash feared that she might fall over if Ravyn hadn’t been holding her up.

Giving her an arm, carefully leading her to the sofa, Ravyn invited her to sit. She took her seat next to Anya, unable to stop herself touching her, as if afraid she would disappear if she so much as blinked.

Even as he sat across from them, Bash’s eyes continued warily roaming over the two of them, trying to figure out this puzzle. Ravyn had claimed this woman as a sister, yet the woman who sat before them could much more easily pass as her grandmother or great-grandmother. Despite him keeping on edge for any potential danger, his wolf yawned, apparently still unconcerned. His mind told him vampires didn’t age but at the same time, it argued that their very existence made anything possible.

“You have lived a life,” Ravyn offered reverently, her initial shock at the impossible aging before her causing her voice to waver, or perhaps that was still the shock of having an actual sister before her.

“As have you, Sister; I just wear my years now. And I’ll admit I’ve seen and heard a bit more of your life then you have mine, surely an advantage to living in the public eye these recent years.” There wasn’t even a hint of judgment from the different choices the two had clearly made.

Tilting her head at Ravyn, Anya examined her, as if it were Ravyn whom the years had changed. “The years have made you even more beautiful, if that were possible. It doesn’t surprise me at all that you’re an actress. Our little bird loved to act out stories, mimic those around us, dance and sing, although she never was a good singer.”

“Still isn’t,” Bash admitted gruffly, sending Anya into peals of laughter even as Ravyn feigned dismay over the teasing, raising a haughty eyebrow at him while leveling a look that would fell mere mortals.

“And you, my sweet Ibis, you’ve…” Ravyn searched for the words. She’d refused to look at the reports Bash had pulled, saying that if he said Ibis was safe, then she would learn all about her on her own during their meeting.

“I’ve grown old, darling. I’ve grown old.” Smiling with acceptance of this very human trait, Anya looked fondly at the younger version of herself.

Ravyn’s hands twitched on her lap, and Bash wasn’t the only one to notice. With a soft smile, Anya reached over to grasp each smooth hand in her own aged hands. Caressing the smoothness and softness, silently inviting Ravyn to do the same, she pulled Ravyn’s hand to her lined face before kissing the back of it with a sudden ferociousness.

They sat in silence for a moment, each waiting for the other to ask or explain and when neither did, Bash cleared his throat. “Anya, or do you prefer Ibis? I saw you have children? Three?”

“Either is fine. I suppose my days of being Ibis have passed and I will remain Anya until the end.” She added wistfully, “Names have changed over the years, but all reflect a part of me.” Patting next to her, Anya ensured that her small handbag remained by her side before continuing on in a proud tone, “Oh, yes, yes. Leo—that’s my husband—and I adopted three children, two boys and a girl. They’re all grown up now with families of their own. My oldest son lives here in California with his husband. I’ve been staying with them, while I’ve… um, I’ve been waiting. I usually visit them part of each year to escape the midwestern winters, but this year I needed to be here longer. Thank the goddess I did, since you finally received my letter. My other son and daughter each married, but they still live near me in Indiana where we raised them. I have eight grandchildren and even two great grandchildren. Can you imagine that?”

Bash knew that Ravyn could, in a different lifetime, imagine that of Ibis. Over the last few days, setting up the meeting, Ravyn had spoken nearly non-stop of her memories of Ibis. Back in the temple days, Ibis had talked of her dream to someday have a family. She fell naturally into mothering the little girls in the other groups and could always be counted on to have a cry with. Just as often, she could be found nursing baby birds that had fallen from nests and once for an entire week once, she’d carried a mouse in her pocket, feeding it bits of her every meal. While some girls had considered it an honor to be chosen to serve in the temple, Ibis had been devastated.

Most temples required strict vows and a commitment to a lifetime of serving them. For gentle Ibis, who wanted a simple life, a husband and children, it had been a yoke she bore silently. Temple life wasn’t a life she would have chosen for herself, and certainly not eternal life. The woman before him in many ways hadn’t changed from the young woman Ravyn had described.

Pulling out pictures from her otherwise empty clutch, she shared them with Ravyn and Bash. Leo was as tall as Anya was short. He was lanky, with large eyes and a smile that showed through in each picture; it was clear they shared a great love. With the pride of a mother, Anya pointed out who each of the children were, who they’d married, and how many children they had.

The final picture was a family picture, the entire family, taken just a year before Leo passed, Anya explained sadly with a shaky voice. Leo sat in a wheel chair in the front with a giggling toddler caught in mid wiggle on his lap. The family, a mixture of sizes and colors, looked happily straight toward the camera while Anya, with a hand on her husband’s shoulder, looked at him as if she’d discovered the greatest gift of a lifetime. And truly she did.

“You have a beautiful family,” Bash told her.

Ravyn seemed unable to speak, mesmerized by the picture and studying each of the faces as if one might hold a clue to the secrets of such a jubilant life.

“Thank you, it was a good day. The last before, well, before the days got worse for him.” With a gentle kiss to the picture, Anya carefully placed it back in her handbag with the other three before offering Ravyn’s hand an understanding squeeze. “I miss him every day, but I’m so thankful for the years we had.

“I suppose I should address the elephant in the room,” she began, instantly putting Bash on edge. Had this sweet, gentle lady been behind the terrifying gifts and threats? His instincts screamed no, but often the most benign of creatures could be the deadliest.

“After that night when, well, when it happened,” Anya began, “I ran. I mean, I suppose we all did. I could barely think straight; the pain and hunger were all consuming. Running was all I could do after...”

Ravyn nodded slightly in sad agreement.

Bash couldn’t imagine the confusion and pain the young women had encountered after they were given to demons to re-form in a new image. His wolf snarled once again with the desire to rip the heads from the supposed priests.

“I ran and ran and ran. I didn’t know where we were—none of us did—and I didn’t know where I was going or where I would end up. It took days before the curse finally calmed enough for me to control it. But I suppose you know all this.” The look that passed between the two women spoke of eons more pain than her few short words disclosed.

“Then I couldn’t find anyone, any of you. It was like poof , gone. Some must have run farther or not as far or in different directions for who knows how long. I even tried for years to find the temple again, hoping that maybe others found their way back. But I couldn’t find the little clearing no matter how hard I searched. During those years, the world was so big and later, the memories faded as surely as the temple eventually turned to dust. Time erased all proof of its existence, of our existence too, I suppose. Still, I made it my mission to search for you, any of you; anything not to be so alone.”

Ravyn had previously told Bash that she herself had never looked for the temple, assuming that eventually the earth and river had reclaimed it. It was a place of nightmares, a place that had hopefully rotted away along with the secrets to eternal life. Ravyn had no desire to return to the place that had both destroyed and created her.

“I couldn’t find it, but years later, I did find a few survivors. Survivors might not be the right word, maybe victims, but years passed us. Those evil men had several temples, not just ours, and more failures than successes, but they were so determined to beat death, to hold onto their feeble mortality no matter the cost or sacrifice of others. They soon learned that in defeating death, they only ensured theirs came much quicker. The others who had been forced to change—other originals, I suppose—hadn’t met any of our sisters. After a while, I thought maybe you were just all gone and that I was truly alone.”

They sat silently once more, and Bash sent a look toward Ravyn. Should he leave now? This wasn’t his story to know. A tiny, discreet shake of her head kept him in his seat.

“I wandered for years and years,” Anya went on. “Those years flipped by like the pages of a book, sometimes turning faster and faster and other times, slowly dragging on. During those years, I learned control but I also learned loss. Always loss. Everywhere I settled, those years would flip by along with the lives of those around me, those I cared about. I tried several times to find a piece of love in this world, a man with whom to settle, one willing to call me his wife, but as time went on and they began the slow descent to aging, their love grew to hate as I stayed the same, year after year. Love, hate, and loss, the circle of my life.

“I went into a deep sleep for years at a time, hoping that when I awoke, perhaps things would be different for me. They never were—different, that is. The world changed, but the cycle didn’t. It couldn’t. Even turning someone for companionship wasn’t a sure thing. The curse picks its survivors. Despite my efforts, not all survived the process, and those who did, didn’t want to spend an eternity with me. So, I often slept just to pass the years away.”

“The deepest of sleeps can be the most healing,” Ravyn confirmed.

“I did meet one of our sisters. Once upon a time, I suppose. So, I do know what happened to one beautiful sister. The other little one just bigger than you, Jackal. I don’t know what she called herself, if anything. Jackal didn't speak to me. She’d given up on life, you see. I found her sitting in a village in Europe, sometime in the height of the plague. Surrounded in death and decay. Every family, every single villager sickened and died until there was no one left to bury the rest and they just lay there, filling the air with the smell. Her clothes were in tatters, her beautiful hair matted with mud and sickness. She lay in the street of an empty village next to a small child, mute and unable to so much as cry. I don’t even know how I recognized her.

“But daylight was coming, you see. At this point, the sunlight was already making us a bit weaker and burning our skin during its zenith. So, I pulled her into a nearby burnt-out house where she moaned and cried, beating her fists against me. And once the sun rose high, in a burst of impossible energy, she ran out into it, arms stretched, reaching out and begging for the sun to take her. It burned and sizzled her skin and she screamed in pain as I watched from the shadows of the shell of a house. But still she was too strong for even the sun.”

Silently, Bash went and poured water into a glass and handed it to Anya, who with trembling hands took a long, slow, deep drink. “My thanks,” she said before setting the glass down.

Clutching Ravyn’s hand in hers as if to steady both women’s hands, she took a few deep breaths. “When the clouds blew in, I covered myself and shot out of the house as quick as I could in my own weakened state and gathered her up like a tiny bundle of charred rags, dragging her back into the safety of the house as she silently fought against me.”

“In the hours that followed, I tried to give her my blood to heal, and she clamped her lips so tightly closed that her teeth bit through them as her body battled the pull of the curse. She hated me in those moments, cursing me with her bloody eyes, begging me with strained vocal cords to end it for her. So, I did. Maybe if I hadn’t, I could have convinced her to keep going. Maybe if I had tried harder, I could have saved her. Maybe I could have walked away. But in the end, I helped her along her journey. I stopped her pain. And after that, I simply quit looking for the rest of you.” With a shrug of one shoulder, Anya added, “Maybe if I were stronger, but I couldn’t face doing that ever again.”

“Those first years were so difficult,” Ravyn agreed softly, understanding as memories filled her eyes. “The rage, the guilt. We had to learn to reconcile the two or there was no survival.”

“Your man there knows about reconciling two sides. It’s a fine line we must all walk. And we must change with the world or be left behind,” Anya added solemnly, holding her water up as if to toast the memories. “But for me, being left behind was the hardest, the most difficult part. Love and loss. Then repeat the cycle until I couldn’t anymore. More than once I wanted to find a way to end myself as well, but I suppose I was too much of a coward. The alternative was to sleep. Sleep for years and let the pain fade, I suppose.”

“I understand,” Ravyn softly affirmed. “I’ve slept as much or more than I’ve lived. The earth asks for nothing.”

Anya nodded in agreement. “And it gives nothing in return either, love. Surviving is not the same as living.”

Bash pondered her words and Ravyn’s admission. He knew vampires could hibernate within the earth for long periods of time, barely sustaining life in a deep trance state, until their body woke them to enter the land of the living again. However, he had no idea how long Ravyn had slumbered until that moment. Did others hide away from immortality the same as she did or was she an anomaly?

“I met my Leo seventy years ago. And I knew the rush of new love, the thrill of a first kiss and the honeymoon that follows; goddess knows I’ve done it enough times.”

“Here, here.” Ravyn raised her own glass in agreement, and the pang Sebastian felt in his stomach amplified when his wolf cried in its own sorrow. Whining, the wolf pulled back from the pain of Ravyn’s confession.

With a glance of astuteness that seemed to lay his pain bare, Anya offered a slight nod at him in… understanding?

“And I was done. This love was so different than the others over the years. I wanted to experience new things with him. I wanted to raise children with him, children whom I wouldn’t out live, children who would watch me grown old, not the other way around. I wanted to experience growing old with a man who could really see me. Pipe dreams they were; imagine one of our kind growing older and older until the light dims and then fades from our eyes.”

“But you made it happen,” Ravyn observed. “How did you make it happen? It shouldn’t be possible.”

Shuddering with the memories, the older woman admitted the horrors. “The process may have been just as bad, if not worse, than the original transition. There were rumors, folktales really, of witches who lived hidden in the swamps of the Czech Republic, near a castle they safeguarded called Houska Castle, built over a gateway to the underworld. Rumors floated around that in this generation it was being guarded by powerful twins from one of the oldest lines in Europe. A man and a woman, equal in power, sharing it, they claimed, like they shared their mother’s womb.”

Twins were a rarity in the witching world, and seldom was a male born who could harness the same power his female counterparts did. There was power in being a single female from a powerful line, but twins were an anomaly and historically, they weren’t generally permitted to happen, no matter the cost.

Bash stumbled over the words, a mixture of shock and awe, but not disbelief despite his words. “You… you crossed through the Gateway to Hell? You went into a hell gate?”

Of course he’d heard of Houska Castle; one of Oliver’s side projects was the safeguarding and occasional monitoring of mystical sites around the world. This was something their third partner Malthazar specialized in, spending most of his time off the grid, investigating. According to Malthazar, it was the real deal—and nothing to mess around with.

The mystical castle in the middle of nowhere, a hot spot for paranormal activity, stood atop a seemingly bottomless pit or what some claimed was an entrance to hell, designed to keep the evil bound there. Others had been sent to determine its origins, but he himself had never laid eyes on it, just read the reports to fill time and listened to Malth’s stories.

It was one of several places that claimed to be a gateway to hell and, in truth, one of only three that could legitimately claim such a title. The false gateways were a good distraction for the tourists who wanted to visit magical, dangerous sites. A visit to a pretender kept them safe from the true gateways and gave them something to brag about to their friends.

So many legends surrounded Houska Castle: demonic beasts were seen trying to escape the pit under the castle; screeching, flying winged creatures and legless crawling monsters that could still cover a hundred feet in seconds were a few drawn out in old text books. At one time, prisoners who were sentenced to death were offered pardons if they agreed to be lowered by rope into the hole and share whatever they saw. Results varied. Most died screaming within minutes of being lowered, before they could be pulled to safety. One survivor who was winched to safety within seconds of screaming had aged what looked to be thirty years, complete with wrinkles and pure white hair. And the few others who survived were out of their minds, unable to utter a coherent word about what they’d seen, babbling and shrieking nonsense until they left this world. Going to Houska Castle and hoping for help and mercy was a gamble for anyone, especially considering that much more was unknown than known about the nefarious structure.

“It was horrifying, but at the same time beautiful.” Anya explained being ripped apart by shadows before being reknit back together, again and again.

“It felt like I was down in the pit for hours, maybe even days. The screams ruptured my raw throat and I tore at my face, trying to escape. Endless, relentless, but when the twins pulled me back out, it had apparently only been a few seconds. Seconds. Imagine that? Days to recover, to heal wounds that at one time would have healed nearly instantly, but then I was human. Whatever happened to me down there returned my humanity and stripped away the demon inside me. The endless days and nights were over, but my, how different the days were! Sometimes I might find a new wrinkle overnight; that’s how quickly humans change, you know. It’s remarkable. My skin started to sag, my bones ached, and my eyesight faded. But it was wonderful, a miracle to do it with my Leo. When I looked at him, I could see myself and the love… the love grew and grew. His wrinkles became my wrinkles.”

Sebastian felt a pit growing larger and larger in his stomach. The pressure nearly bowled him over. Was Anya here because she wanted Ravyn to turn her back into a vampire? Had she really not been able to find her sisters or had she just waited until she needed them again?

Her love was gone. Her children grown.

Now that death stared her in the face, had she come to regret her choices? His claws lengthened slightly and he curled them into his palms, where they bit into the skin as he held himself in check. Let Ravyn draw her own conclusions , he chanted to himself as he eyed the visitor with new distrust.

“Hold now, wolf, steady on,” warned the old woman, seeming to read him well enough despite being human. Anya’s soft gaze turned back and forth between Sebastian and Ravyn, examining them both intently.

She smiled gently once again. “I’m glad to know that you know love. Sister. It’s a gift to both receive and give love. When I die, my heart will be happy because if you and I both know how to love, then surely our surviving sisters can be granted no less.”

When the short introductions had been made, Bash’s reason for being there hadn’t been laid out to Anya. The ache in his stomach subsided just a bit, imagining what the woman must see to decide that they were lovers. Of course, Bash simply being present for this exchange did suggest an intimacy between them that just wasn’t possible.

“We’re dear friends,” Ravyn serenely told her older sister, while Bash struggled to explain himself, and his damn wolf preened under the older woman’s insight.

“Of course you are.” Anya patted Ravyn’s knee while giving Bash a sympathetic but knowing glance. “Just like myself and my Leo.”

“What a life you’ve led.” Bash wasn’t imagining the wishful tone in Ravyn’s voice. “To have a love like that, and your family… How precious and beautiful.”

“I have been a very lucky woman, and I can rest easy knowing I’ve laid eyes on you.” A troubled sigh left her before her smile returned a moment later. “I have been writing you for a few years now. Ever since I recognized you, I have sent letters to your agency, knowing the chances of you getting them and believing in who I was could be impossible. But here we are at the final hour. I know your wolf already sees it, but I’m dying.”

Holding up a hand as Ravyn opened her mouth, Anya continued. “No, this is what I want. It’s my next big adventure and the final chapter of my human life. It’s everything I have wanted and more.”

Anya spoke of her inevitable death as if she looked forward to the event. Surely, Bash prayed to Fenrir, when Anya faced the scales, it would lean heavily on the love her heart held for her family and not what the priests had forced her to become.