JACK

Jack and Liz spent weeks searching for information on Lerra, but the Windsor archives were useless. With each passing day he grew more restless, partly because of the news of the Border falling in Edinburgh and Constantinople and partly, because Bryce was on edge. The last time Bryce was on edge, a rebellion against him started, hundreds of vampires were murdered and swallowed by the fire that started in Constantinople.

Vampires were not the only thing that died with the flames, all records on them died, too.

Jack sat in the library, drumming on the table. He was a nervous wreck ever since the Border fell. Ever since the news that Lerra De Noves wasn't in Cardona reached him. He knew it was only a matter of time before the same news reach Bryce and then he just might kill Jack for not telling him.

Jack waited on Liz. She was trying to persuade her historian friend into giving her scripts on slave exchange before the 15th century. There was probably no mention of Lerra, because the information in the scripts usually consisted only of prices at certain times. If anything else could be found there, Bryce would've already confiscated it.

He wasn't sure what he was looking for. Perhaps he was only trying to shorten his time, to quiet his nerves down. Maybe he didn't really want to find anything, maybe he was looking for proof that Lerra was exactly who she said she was. But he couldn't let it go.

Something tugged on his mind and he couldn't let it go. Lerra appeared right after the rebellion against Bryce; right when all the records of her potential past life died in the flames.

"I got them." Liz entered the library and Jack's heartbeat quickened.

She strode to the table and put all the old books down. Without a word, they both began searching through them.

"A lot of witches ended up in slavery when Inquisition began, so we will have to read a lot of books. I brought every record on every witch slaver my friend had, everything from the end of the 13th century to the middle of 14th, just in case Bryce's records are wrong. Any idea how we might narrow it down?" She asked, flipping through pages.

"Let's see," Jack began thinking out loud, "there are two possible stories. First, Lerra is telling the truth. Which means that either Bryce's records are wrong and Luciana was freed much later or somebody else freed Luciana when Lerra was a baby. In the latter case, it must have been someone from De Noves House and none of them were made."

"That would mean a human freed Luciana, someone from De Noves House?" Liz went with his line of reasoning.

"Yes, if the first story is correct, that is, if Lerra is telling the truth about who she is. Second story, Lerra is lying. That would mean she wasn't active in the vampire society before she "appeared" and no one knew who she was." Jack went on while piling useful books on one heap.

"What are you thinking?" Liz asked.

"What do these two stories have in common?" Jack countered and Liz shrugged her shoulders. "In both of them, the buyer has no money. There is no way a human De Noves member would have enough gold to purchase a witch like Luciana. If Lerra De Noves freed her herself, while not actively existing in the vampire society, she couldn't have used gold either."

"You're right, a vampire that nobody's ever heard of with enough gold to buy a witch? It would raise suspicion." Liz agreed.

Jack smiled.

"Luciana's freedom was paid with something else and that is what we're looking for." He concluded. Liz nodded and began searching through the books.

Jack did the same. Infinite names showed in front of his eyes, mostly only first names. He would have searched for Luciana's name but he was almost certain she wouldn't be in the books under the real one, so he decided on other tactics.

Information they found in Bryce's archives focused solely on witches, information he stole from Constantinople before it burnt down during the rebellion. But nothing on slavers and trade deals, so they had no idea where Luciana actually came from.

Jack was at a crossroad in his own mind. A part of him desperately wanted to believe Lerra. After all, he spent years serving her, doing her bidding. But he knew they differed in more than one way. Lerra had wanted to include werewolves and witches into their world and Jack's entire being was utterly against this. Bryce's views were much closer to his own.

Jack served Lerra because he loved her and love was never a good foundation for political matters.

The candle on the table flickered and Jack got lost in the light for a moment. What a useless existence, he thought, wasted on serving others while he could have achieved something by himself. But his father taught him he was worth nothing and that he would have a much better time serving kings instead of ruling.

His thoughts drifted to Giselle. He didn't take her out of Carcassonne simply because he wanted to hurt Lerra. Or because she claimed she wanted to have a child, which he now believed was a lie. He helped her escape because she wanted to escape, because she would've stopped at nothing to leave that place. It was a characteristic he admired, perhaps because he didn't posses it.

"This is interesting." Liz commented after a while and shoved the book in front of Jack. "Read this." She pointed her finger towards a row.

"L.F. sold to an old acquaintance for an artefact of personal value." Jack read out loud and exchanged glances with Liz. "Luciana Flour is the witch's name. Do we know who was the slaver?" He asked.

Liz flipped the pages without a word as Jack carefully traced her movements. He felt stirring in the pit of his stomach, he felt he was about to discover a secret.

"His name was, or is, Marcus Dominus, Master Marcus, a slaver from..." She stopped mid-sentence and looked at Jack, "...Roman Empire."

Light of the candle went out. One book fell off the shelf.

"Is someone here?" Jack asked, strange coldness coursing through his veins.

Multiple books fell off and Jack got up abruptly.

"What's going on?" Liz asked, her voice coloured in slight panic. Jack tried to stay still as he watched the books on the floor, waiting for the intruder to show himself. He leaned onto the table and focused on his vampire hearing to let him know what's going on.

As soon as he put his hands down, her felt the vibrations going through the table and his hands. He moved away and stared at the table awe-struck. Liz grabbed him by the arm as they watched the table shake before their eyes.

Then, books began falling off and every piece of furniture in the library shook in the same rhythm as the table.

"We have to go." Jack said, trying to keep his voice calm. Liz nodded and held him tightly by the arm as he walked towards the staircase, avoiding the books falling around them. When they reached the stairs, Jack heard the sounds coming from the upper parts of the castle.

Screams, running, raw panic.

"What's going on?!" Liz asked again, her voice bordering on distraught. Jack didn't say anything. He knew if he spoke, she would hear the fear in his voice.

As they ascended, Jack could hardly keep his balance. The ground for shaking so hard he thought he might fall, despite his vampire abilities. Once they reached the ground level, they saw vampires running through the castle, their faces covered in tears, terror written all over them.

Chandeliers fell off the ceiling, candles spilling wax all over the floor, even lighting the carpet on fire. Jack rushed to the burning material and stomped on it with his foot.

"What the hell is going on?" He asked a vampire woman that ran past him, probably one of the lesser ladies. Her lips were twisted in a grimace of pure horror as she stared blankly at Jack, shaking her head. He grabbed her by both of her arms and shook her.

"Tell me!" He demanded.

"The Border..." She muttered, freed herself from Jack's grasp and ran down the hallway with unnatural speed.

What Jack did next, he did completely on impulse. He hurried towards Liz, grabbed her and ran with his vampire speed up the stairs, to the higher levels of Windsor Castle. An old instinct commanded his actions, an instinct that knew how to escape a predator.

"Stay here." He told Liz. "Don't make a sound. If you're lucky, whatever's attacking the castle will be sated before it finds you."

He didn't wait for her to answer, he ran downstairs, using his vampire abilities to locate Bryce. Following Bryce's strong voice, Jack thought what they should do next. This had never happened, never had they faced their strongest line of defence crumbling into pieces. But Jack had escaped once, when he took Giselle out of Carcassonne.

Jack found himself in front of the main gate of Windsor Castle. Only this morning, harbingers of spring blossomed all over the grass. Now, every flower was dead. The sky was covered in grey-black clouds, sun didn't shine through. And in the distance, across the now dead grass, white lights hovered over what used to be Bryce's men.

Lord Augustin Bryce stood at the gate, his jaw dropped, an exasperated expression on his face. He had the typical vampire military gear on, a metal armour protecting his heart, but leaving his hands free and a metal collar around his neck protecting his head from being chopped off. He held a sword in his hand and Jack could tell he was trembling. He approached Bryce through the harsh wind that swirled around.

"Tell me you have more men here!" Jack shouted, it was almost impossible to hear anything due to the wind and the ground shaking.

"Light infantry, one fifth. I'm not sending anyone else, we need another plan." Bryce shouted back.

"What we need to do is get out of here!" Jack could see Bryce's army commander nodding in agreement. A few other people were around Bryce, including two of his sons.

"I'm not leaving Windsor Castle. We do not move until we defeat whatever is after us." Bryce's voice was strong and he did not shift his gaze from the field illuminated in whiteness.

"Don't be stubborn, Bryce! We should head to London, the Border might be stronger there." Jack said and Bryce's army commander moved closer to Jack.

Then, Bryce turned to Jack and his mouth widened into one of those creepy smiles he wore so often.

"How about you go there?" Bryce asked, jerking his head towards the field. "Tell me what's going on, scout a little. And if you won't, perhaps I'll make you."

It was the sentence that should have made Jack run, or at least shut up, but he was so tired of people telling him what to do. So damn tired of caving in. He looked Bryce in the eye.

"Oh, you old fool. Thinking you're better than everyone. You know what's out there? The fourth figure, waiting for you to be stubborn, or smug enough. So go ahead, make your soldiers drag me to the fields and leave me to die. At least I'll know that the next one dying is you." Jack smiled and turned around, ready to leave, and heard Bryce laughing behind his back.

"Guards!" He shouted and Jack found himself grabbed and dragged to his knees, amidst the apocalypse. The guards turned Jack around and Bryce stared down at him, a victorious smirk on his lips.

"Did you really think," Bryce began slowly, "that I would ever forgive you for betraying me? Did you really think I had plans for you, other than to kill you?"

It took all of Jack's strength to not crumble beneath this man's feet, to not beg for forgiveness as soldiers dragged him across the field. He tried fighting, but he was caught by surprise and it was three against one.

He would run once they left him amongst the white lights, Jack thought, they would have to move quickly, otherwise the lights would kill them, too. A ray of hope appeared in Jack's hammering heart as the lights grew brighter and the wind whooshed louder.

But the soldiers stopped in front of the lights that Jack soon recognised to be small creatures, unknown to him. He could not see much, but he noticed huge, white fangs tearing the flesh of dead soldiers that covered the ground. Jack swallowed hard.

The soldiers let him go before those lights and Jack began turning around, confused, but happy. Those dumb morons, he thought, now he would be able to escape.

But a sharp pain hit the lower part of his back and he fell in the ground completely, landing on his hands on among the dead grass. Jack screamed in agony, unable to move any part of his body. He couldn't tear his eyes off the vicious creatures getting closer to him, but he stretched his hand and felt the wooden stake, peeking out of his spine.

Jack suddenly remembered every battlefield he was on, every encounter he had with death. He grabbed the stake and pulled it out with every ounce of strength he had left as the lights blinded him to the point he didn't see anything except for whiteness.

Then he felt them, teeth biting through his flesh, pulling him on all sides, threatening to tear him apart. Jack screamed, feeling hot stings all over his body. Lights and pain swirled through his brain and Jack couldn't focus on anything other than praying that this agony would stop.

And then, it did. Jack opened his eyes and saw a back-haired, pale boy, hovering over his head. The boy could not have been older than ten and he stared at the creatures, his arms spread wide.

"Leave!" The boy shouted.

"Wh...what?" Jack stuttered.

Rays of black mist danced around the child and Jack managed to stand on his feet, feeling every bit of his body ache.

"Send the message to Giselle Solberg. Tell her to follow the roses, tell her we need her!" The boy didn't spare Jack a glance as he commanded.

"Who needs her!? Why?" Jack asked.

"Two of the Five need her, others have turned to darkness! Tell her! Leave!" The boy strained to keep the creatures at bay and Jack realised this was his only chance to disappear.

"Who are you?" He tried again.

"One of the Five! I am the Second!" The boy barely finished his sentence, Jack already ran for cover, bypassing entire Windsor Castle as he moved, not looking back.