Hi!

Anna and Alexander will have to make their way through this night. Maybe the only way they can is together. I hope you like this chapter! It was fun writing it. Oh and you get inside scoop about vampire creation myths and history, well sort of....   ;-)

Lara

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Chapter 42

The music picked up in pace, adding a new mix of rhythm and spirit to the atmosphere. The haunting sound was reflected from the walls, reverberating from fleur-de-lis windows and stone arches in a low rumble, only to come back and make the hair on my nape stand on end.

We were in the apse of the church, somewhere behind the throne-like seat Antonio Cellini occupied when we entered. Alexander's hand was where it was five minutes ago, resting on the most exquisite loveseat I ever laid eyes on. The tips of his fingers barely touched the back of my neck, but the contact of skin on skin sent shivers down my spine. The show was on, and what a show it was.

Antonio Cellini was watching us, his eyes lingering on the point where Alexander's hand touched mine. He looked longer and more closely than necessary. Or, maybe, he was just staring at my jugular in a not so subtle way. At this point in time I didn't even know which I preferred. I was too far gone to even care.

"You said there were matters you wanted to discuss. I hear that New York is in a state of unrest," Antonio finally said.

"It is but a little matter," Alexander said.

I recognized the tone of voice. It reminded me of the political arm-twisting I witnessed in New York, discussions between Alexander and Brown in which Alexander would come out as the winner, one way or another. I was beginning to see a pattern I missed back then.

Leaders, politicians, people that held more than an ounce of power and authority – no matter which segment of the population they belonged to, Alexander treated them with the same bland mix of formality and flattery. It was a manner of speaking, a certain drawl that caught the mind's attention. He was using the voice of someone you wanted to trust, someone whose words you could believe in.

No matter how you looked at it, Alexander was a master in the art of deception and political showmanship. Maybe even the most refined this room had seen for a while.

The head vampire smiled. "Nonetheless, I see a slight shift in certain parts of society. Therefore it has been my objective to host an event uniting all three races and deepen the understanding between all the parties involved. Your majesty's ability to connect with humans, witches and vampires alike is known throughout the world. You have the gift of being able to bridge gaps and reunite opposing parties." He paused for emphasis, inclining his head in a gesture of respect. "I most humbly ask for your majesties to attend as guests of honor."

The cat was out of the bag. That was why Alexander was so keen on attending Red Night's Eve to begin with. I knew it beyond a doubt. It begged the question, whether he-

I froze. It was there. A change in the air, a slight pressure behind my retinas.

A sure sign that someone who could pack a punch with the weight of his or her stare alone was watching us. The vamps closest to the dais could probably hear what Alexander was saying. I wondered just how many rules of vampiric etiquette Alexander just broke by asking what he did. Was that really why Alexander was here? The main objective and long-term goal in his scheme of action?

"I will be of assistance anyway I can, Alexander. I am deeply indebted to you. But let us not talk about business matters until this night is over, shall we? We will bore our human servants to death with our talk," Antonio said. His eyes drifted to me in a deliberate, slow motion.

"Red Night's Eve is a time for us to come together and honor the very first vampires. Aristocrats and vampires of the five royal families gather in one place, celebrating the ancient ones. It has been celebrated for centuries," he said. "This is the night everything began. Thousands of years ago, when the first vampire was born – far far away in the eastern parts of this world where time was not a concept humans had defined and divided into minutes and hours."

I blinked at him. Apparently Antonio took that as a sign of disbelief.

"The song of creation humans sing is not the only one known to mankind, Anna. The knowledge of how we were created has been lost in the threads of time, but we still remember. Humans speak of creation myths and old, dark legends about the origin of vampirism. Most of them are made of thin lies and vulgar superstition. What we celebrate was real. We, who are closer to death than any other species, are different from the rest. Our responsibility is greater than most. So are our losses. This is what we need to remember."

Had I been anywhere else, had this happened at another time and under different circumstances, I would have been hanging on to Antonio's words like a bystander watching the site of a horrible accident; spurred by the morbid curiosity that drives us to learn things going way beyond our comfort zones.

I did none of that. Couldn't.

My eyes would stray, wander among the distant crowd and the shadows in the corners of the church. Somewhere in this monastery, no in this room, the vampire who killed my parents was drinking. Chatting. He was walking among the living dead, and no one stopped him. No one seemed to mind he committed a crime that threw my world into chaos and darkness.

"The transition of time works in different ways for us," Antonio said.

The sound of his voice was like splintering ice easing itself into cold water softly. There was no way not to look. It captured my attention like an unspoken, unvoiced command springing from somewhere deep inside of me.

"It is easy to get lost and stranded in the sands of time. Forget our path in this world. We celebrate Red Night's Eve not only to commemorate the birth and rise of the first vampires, Anna. We are immortal. However, the world around shifts and is in constant transition. Past and present merge in this one night."

I frowned. What exactly did he mean with that?

Antonio's face lost the friendly touch it had when he welcomed us, it slipped and ebbed until all that was left was a bland mask, a far-away-look in his eyes that made me feel uncomfortable.

"The history of vampires and witches is a bloody one. Between then and now lies a time of war and bloodshed," he said softly. "But here we are, sitting at one and the same table."

He fell silent and I averted my eyes. I had no idea how a human servant was supposed to respond to that, if I was supposed to respond at all. Peering through the glow of candles, my eyes narrowed as I spotted him. There, in the far corner to our right, sipping on a golden cup, lips smeared with red. My parents' murderer. The beginning and the end of my nightmares.

Alexander said something. Judging from the pleasant tone of his voice just the right response he was supposed to give. My eyes were fixed on the unknown vampire, drifting in and out of the conversation at random.

"It is our gift and our curse," Antonio said. "To share with those that are so very different from us is what we have to do in order to survive. Our lifetimes are far greater and more violent than most humans could fathom. We tend to accept stasis and longevity too easily, forgetting that once we were just like them."

I saw the tilt of the vampire's face, my parents' murderer, remembered that profile instants before he turned to me all those years ago. Remembered the bottomless pits of his black eyes, the void inside. One look was enough and I was thrown back into the nightmare that haunted me ever since that night. The razor-sharp taste of fresh blood and wasted magic in the air.

I stilled, taking a deep breath.

"A single existence, one human alone, can change and rebuild worlds," Antonio said.

The words knifed into me. Alexander went still beside me, not even acknowledging my existence. His fingers were like pebbles of iced stone at the base of my neck. Motionless. Still.

It took me longer than it should have to process what Antonio Cellini was talking about. I was too preoccupied with my own personal moment of mental breakdown, I didn't notice. Antonio's heavy gaze was directed at me.

I averted my eyes from the recurring vision of my nightmares and blinked up at the royal vampire. Antonio was staring at me with the same blandness he'd used before. No emotion. Just empty eyes.

Silence engulfed us as the meaning of his words penetrated.

A single existence, one human alone...

Why say it and look at me? Was he, or was he not talking about human servants? About me? Was I reading too much into it?

"I owe the lives of my family and my own to you. The fact that you, a witch born in the twenty-first century, have sacrificed everything to live with one of us is a sure sign that times are changing," Antonio said, staring at me.

There was power in his gaze, an absolute knowledge forged and accumulated during a sackful of lifetimes. It felt like he was taking a dive right into my soul.

"There is a difference between true devotion and loyalty gained through suppression. It is something most of us had to learn over centuries," he said.

I looked at Antonio Cellini, willing my eyes not to widen. No tells, no nothing. Not this night.

I forced more meaningless sound into my mind, but the harder I tried, the more it sounded like whirring blades cutting into raw flesh. This was the core of the dangerous charade Alexander and I had put on for the royal vampires. If I messed this up there was no guarantee for me walking out alive.

I stared at Antonio, prolonged the moment of blinking to the point of painful.

The royal vampire's eyes shifted to Alexander in a slow gaze. Whatever words they said next, they were drowned out by the heavy engine knock of my heart. My eyes darted to the undead crowd the instant Antonio Cellini's left mine, sought out the murderer.

Had all the things that transpired led me to this one point? Was all that happened in New York a set of dominoes crashing to the floor one after the other? It felt like I'd been veering towards this one night like a car spinning out of control, caught up in mid-air instants before the crash. Watching the lamppost approach and frozen in suspension.

If I was going to crash this night, I didn't care. The ride would be worth it and it was too late to get off it now.

I was going to learn the name of my parents' murderer this night, and I wouldn't stop there.

* * *

I walked behind Alexander, my eyes darting back and forth between the stone floor, a spot at the far end of the nave, and his back – like a nervous tick I couldn't get rid of. The blank look he wore on his face when we bowed in front of the royals might have been unreadable, but it bothered me. I had learned as much: That kind of look on Alexander couldn't mean anything good.

If Alexander was upset about what he called eccentric behavior by human servant standards, or by his encounter with Vladislav II, he was very good at not showing it to the rest of the undead crowd, but he couldn't fool me. He was walking through the crowd of vampires with a deliberate slowness that I would have missed, hadn't I seen the small telltale signs I was beginning to understand. Alexander was making a great effort to appear calm and composed. The only question was: Why?

We were at the end of the nave, and I had no idea where we were heading or what I was supposed to do for that matter. I lifted my head, cast another fleeting glance to the far left corner. My eyes stopped. Lingered right there in that spot I'd been watching while listening to Antonio. Drawn and beguiled like moths to the flame. Close. So close. My parents' murderer was standing there, talking.

I blinked. Stared.

The moment stretched and spiraled into me like a cardiac infarction into a perfectly healthy system. The vampire lifted his eyes and they were on me, holding the gaze with the stillness and precision of a predator spotting its prey.

The conversation around him stopped. The blond-haired vampire beside him turned. The cloth of his Venetian tailcoat didn't as much as wrinkle, less move with the motion. His eyes found mine. It was the lightest blue I'd ever seen. Chilling. Annihilating. Merciless. Something about the second vampire bothered me more than I liked to admit.

I forced my eyes back to the ground, willing myself to sink into the shadow-land of inconspicuousness. It was what I was supposed to be as a human servant. A mindless flunky, a human appendage to the walking dead. I almost believed it. Almost.

But as I trudged behind Alexander with my head lowered, I could feel the vampires' eyes on me, needles scraping on skin, screeching as they moved in slow motion. Even without most of my magic, I could feel their power.

Someone had shuffled a deck of cards, laid it out properly on a table in front of me, and I'd drawn the wild card. Whoever these vampires were, they were dangerous.