Hi!

So, this is real: Anna does remember what happened, but getting her memories back will come at a high price and might be too much to handle. Why? Find out in this chapter.... :-)

Lara

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Chapter 56

The memory burst out of the depths of my mind like a violent tremor. I was back in that street again, caught up in that moment of ill foreboding. And...

I stilled, turned my head in time to see dark shadows stretching and elongating.

Dark. Ancient. Vampire.

The sound of sharp knifes scraping along the surface of ridged metal tore through the street, clawing, hacking into my mind. I turned, saw a smudge of motion, screamed when it tore into me. Darkness rippled in front of my eyes and expanded until I couldn't hear, couldn't speak.

I blinked up, pain like starlight flashing behind my eyes, and pushed myself from the ground, then straightened. My shields were completely shattered. The rotten taste of bile coated my throat, breath coming in short, painful gasps.

I scanned the night.

How? Who-

I felt it coming from behind, turned and enforced another wall of air, fortifying it with power. It moved in a too-fast-to-see motion. My instincts screamed vampire as I turned with it, perceiving the motion as the fast stalk of a hunter circling his prey.

I kept spinning, opening my senses to the planes around us. Suddenly it stopped a few feet in front of me and I got my first good look at my opponent. Blood-red hair bound in a high ponytail, a china-white complexion. His eyes were dark brown, almost black. Delicate bones that betrayed his heritage. This vampire was Asian.

His lips curled into a smile.

I concentrated my power on my front, keeping the walls pumped with magic wherever I felt the power of the grave attack my circle. Magical planes rearranged in a liquid heartbeat.

Time got lost like grains of sand scattered by a gust of wind and the vampire was gone.

I turned, stretching out my senses, watching, waiting.

It came from out of nowhere. Liquid fast. Unrelenting. Something crashed into my walls from behind. They shattered. Again.

He had one arm across my neck, one across my stomach, squeezing, cutting off air. The scent of the grave engulfed me, suffocating.

"What do you want?" I ground out, then stilled. Something wasn't right here. I felt the vampire behind me, but there was ... more. Much more.

The Asian vampire hadn't come alone.

I could feel another wave of power approaching. Familiar and yet not. It was more than just one dark aura. It was a destructive avalanche rolling through the city, burying it with the scent of the grave. No, this definitely didn't feel like just one vampire. There had to be at least one more. No matter who, no matter how many – whoever was coming had shitloads of power. Hell, it could have been an army of powerful vamps approaching.

The blood in my veins stagnated. No, not just approaching. It was more than flesh that held me in a deathly grip. It was as if the unknown power was trying to hold my mind. I pushed against tides pressing against my consciousness, dulling my senses. Opened my eyes. I blinked and strained, trying to see past the hazy fog in my mind but all I could see were shadows and darkness. It was close, coming closer and –

"Found you," someone said.

The voice sent splinters down my spine. I stilled, tasted bile in my mouth. What I couldn't see, I could feel and taste. The vampire's aura had a bitter, biting taste to it. I struggled in my captor's arms, the coldness of the grave seeping into my back. Futile.

"Do not move."

I knew the voice. Vladislav.

His eyes were the first thing I saw, and for a moment it was the only thing in existence. Onyx. The darkest, most void pair of black eyes I'd ever seen, even among vampires. The outdated goatee that made him look like the archetype of a Hungarian regent of times long gone. More than that, the dark-blue military tailcoat that showed he had come for war and blood.

A strand of black hair fell into his face, melted and blurred in front of my vision until all I could see was the void that in essence was him. His eyes were gateways to the true underworld of the dead, where nothing that lived could exist.

A face of nightmares, a twin mirror reflection of stillness and death. A mirage that promised things that only existed in the worst kind of nightmares, closing in on my mind, my sanity.

And then the most catastrophic realization.

Vladislav was trying to get inside. Inside my mind!

This was worse than the time Gina Cox violated my mind. Cold steel cuffs were grazing my head, prying with the clinical coldness of a scientist. My core clenched, a fist pushing down on my mind, holding my head underwater and I couldn't breathe.

Is this what Alexander could have done?

I struggled, fighting Vladislavs cold approach in my head. I was not going to lose my mind! My breathing quickened, heartbeat accelerating. The sound of a heart monitor going flat into that long monotone signal. White noise exploded in my mind.

I screamed. Air seeped into my fingers. The particles knitted together, tight and secure, sheltering me in a blanket of power. My element. My own. Air exploded out of my hands, a napalm bomb fueled by elementary magic and the hands holding me were gone.

I blinked, stared into empty space before me. Vladislav was gone, as if lost in the shadows. I blinked. The Asian vampire reappeared two feet away from me, smiling. He was powerful, but not my main concern.

Somewhere in the street Vladislav was waiting, for what, I didn't know. Goose bumps drifted over my skin in a desert wind that reeked of fear and ash.

I shook my head, took a deep breath. For a moment I could breathe again. Think past the rising panic.

The power of the grave leaked from him like black oil. Vladislav's power was off the charts. Fighting him, even just attempting to, was madness. And I was alone. My fingers twitched, ready to go for the pendant and-

Like a steeled sledgehammer the weight of an ancient mind slammed right into and past my walls. My vision parted in two, Vladislav's face splitting in two halves that stretched and twisted.

I blinked, shook my head. Still, I was seeing two visions.

It's not real. He's getting into your mind.

"What do you want?" I ground out.

Vladislav's face reappeared in front of me, this time only one. His face was cold. His eyes void of emotion.

"Oh, but you know, Isabella De Luca."

Isabella De Luca.

Fear leapt into my throat, scraping against my pulse, erasing whatever sense of rationality I had left. Vladislav knew who I was.

I raised my hands, palms up. I needed more than air. I needed the one element vampires feared most and a clever strategy. Vladislav was too old to be fooled easily. I was going to use fire, as I'd never used it before.

Air particles regrouped and united. Waves of air rushed through the street, busy in the wake of the forward suction. Power flashed and turned itself out. It hurt hurt!

Red tainted my vision. Before it exploded.

Air and fire burst from my hands, one element spurred on and fueled by the other. A ball of fire shot through air, racing for Vladislav. Or the spot Vladislav was in. Exactly as I anticipated. The ball of fire exploded, bolts hurtling through the street in a star pattern.

A hiss in my ears, like skin burning. I turned. Drops of sweat on my brow. My throat parched.

I pulled on the magical planes around me, feeding my walls of air. If Vladislav wanted to get a piece of me, he'd have to work to get it.

The street was a mess of dying out fires. The street lamp beside me lay in ashes. Smoke petered out and into the street. No sign of Vladislav or the red-haired Asian.

Where were they?

I turned, gulping in more air. My heart was going 100 miles a minute. I licked my lips. I needed to calm down or was going to lose this battle. This time, losing meant dying.

Where is mommy? Where is daddy?

The disembodied voice sliced through my mind like a bloody switchblade. My eyes widened. It was my own voice as a child.

No. I shook my head. Vladislav was trying to get to me. Make me relive that night.

No. Not that night.

Seal the door, Fabian!

That voice. It was my mother's voice, one of the last things she said.

I clamped my hands on my ears. No.

"Yes," Vladislav said softly, his voice echoing through the street.

My vision parted like a white canvas tearing. The world tilted, tipped and I was thrown back into a night I had relived too many times to count. Trapped and alone.

Darkness. Except for that small hole, that faint light. I could see through the keyhole. Back then I couldn't make sense of it. Of what I was seeing.

Now I could. This night I comprehended the horror in its full depth.

Long brown hair trailing down the vampire's back, blending in with the long dark coat. Dark brown eyes that bled into black. Pools of nothingness I gazed into as a child – right before I lost my memories. And myself.

Something in my heart hurt. It was hard to breathe.

Where is your daughter? Tell me and I will make it quick. I heard Ramondo's voice. As if he'd come back from the dead and was standing right next to me.

"You were the next female in a long line of Pentagrams. It was you. He came because of you. And they died because of you," Vladislav said.