Prophecy - Chapter 5

Prophecy walked wearily into the building. She could feel the sun rising but she didn't want to sleep. She wanted to clear her head, wanted the man she was with to make all the confusion and pain go away. She believed that he had some answers, at least enough to keep her walking the path she'd now chosen. Each step that brought her farther away from her family brought her more pain. She could never return home. Arkalus and the lord of Aurorea would kill her if she did. She would be brought to justice for a crime she didn't know she'd committed. If they didn't get her, she was sure that the Law Keepers would.

Her eyes moved to the man. He closed the door, shutting out the harmful rays of the sun, and then locked it.

He looked like a Law Keeper, or at least how she'd imagined they looked. They were the elite that all the guardsmen of the families aspired to be one day. She'd heard tales of them through the chronicles and through her maid, Serenity. They'd often passed sleepless days talking about the latest news within the seven pure bloodlines, and it often involved the Law Keepers. There were seven of them, one representative for each bloodline, and it was their duty to uphold the laws laid down by their ancestors. They were emotionless, unattached to their own families. To surrender your ties to your bloodline was one of the requirements if you had been chosen to succeed the Law Keeper who had previously represented your family. She wondered if he had been destined to be one. He looked as though he had the skill and the standing within his family to achieve the honoured position once the current Law Keeper was finally killed. It didn't happen often. Most of the Law Keepers were over three centuries old and had been in service for nearly one hundred years of that.

She wondered how many of her kind they had brought to justice in that time. Most sins received the same punishment.

Death.

It was what she would receive if they caught her, and she didn't even know what she'd done wrong.

Her eyes strayed back to the man again.

She realised that he would receive it too. It was a sin to conspire against your bloodline and, by helping her, he was doing just that.

“You had some questions that you needed answering?” He picked something up off the table near the wall and flicked through them. They looked like little books. They seemed familiar.

She tried to remember what they were. They were something that she'd seen on the television many times. She frowned as she struggled to put her finger on it.

Passports.

England. He'd said they were going to England to see someone he knew.

“How do you intend to get us to this friend of yours?” she said.

He didn't bother looking at her. He just threw the passport he'd been looking at over to her.

She caught it and flicked through the pages. In the back of it was a picture of a girl. Prophecy scanned over her details and then looked at the man.

“It doesn't really look like me.”

He smiled that slight smile again. “It doesn't need to. It's all in how they perceive things. The closer it is to you, the easier their minds are to fool, but I am working on short notice. It was the best my associate could get.”

She'd never met anyone who had the ability to alter perception before; none of the vampires that she was allowed to speak to had that skill. He walked towards her and took the passport.

“What's your name?” She didn't hesitate in asking him. It was something she was going to need to know if they were going to be travelling together, and focusing on the small things was helping her avoid having to think about the bigger ones, like who she was and just how she was supposed to be destroying her kind.

He placed the passport down and glanced over his shoulder at her. He seemed to wobble in her vision and her head ached. She pressed her hand to it and leaned against the table behind her for support. She shrugged off the feeling as the after-effects of the drug he'd given her.

“Valentine,” he said.

She repeated it several times over in her head. It was a nice name. It sounded as proud and noble as he looked.

“I'm Prophecy,” she said.

He turned and gave her an amused look.

“And they expected to keep you hidden?” His lips curved into the faintest of smiles and then he went back to whatever it was he was doing.

When he turned around again, he was holding a bundle of clothes. He placed them down beside her and then distanced himself again. She picked them up. They were the clothes she'd been wearing when she'd first met him.

Taking the hint, she changed into them, noting that he somehow managed to avoid looking at her the whole time she was dressing. She was surprised that he wasn't taking advantage of the situation and looking. Every male vampire of her bloodline wouldn't have hesitated in staring at her if she'd been getting changed in the same room as them. He was so different to them. Staring at him, she found herself wondering how old he was. Whatever time he was born in, it had obviously been one where he'd been raised to be well bred and well mannered.

Hell, she would've looked at him if he'd been the one changing.

She smiled to herself while she finished putting on her boots.

Somehow, getting dressed made her feel the tiniest bit better.

She hopped up onto the table and sat on the edge with her hands pressed into the tabletop.

“Just why did I have to be hidden?” she said. He stopped packing things into a bag and his look turned pensive, but he didn't speak. “What is it I've done?”

“It has nothing to do with what you have done, it is what you will do.”

She gave him a confused look. “What I'll do?”

“The prophecy?” He frowned at her and she realised that he did know things that she didn't.

“What?”

He inclined his head a fraction and his voice filled with disbelief. “You don't know?”

She shook her head and wondered if she really wanted to know. Did she want to know the things she was supposedly going to do? Her brother and the lord of Aurorea had said she had to be hunted for the safety of their kind. Was she that much of a danger? Was she somehow going to be responsible for killing them all?

She waited in silence while he propped himself up against the table he'd been arranging things on and looked at her. She got the feeling that he was trying to figure out how to break things to her. Her stomach twisted and turned in a riot of nerves and apprehension. He was taking so long to tell her that it had to be bad. Was he trying to find a way to word it so it didn't seem so terrible? She wished that he'd just tell her straight and tell her quickly.

“There is a prophecy. It foretells the end of our kind at the hands of one of our own. The child of the prophecy will come and on a dark day they will destroy all demons.”

His words lodged in her mind, the only sound in the ringing emptiness that had filled it on hearing them. She was going to destroy them all. Not just vampires, but all demons. What kind of terrible power did she have? She cast her eyes downwards and tried to make sense of it all. Her head swam again and she closed her eyes, trying to stop herself from feeling as though she was swaying rather than sitting still. Her hand moved to her stomach as it rumbled and ached.

Opening her eyes, she stared blankly at the dusty concrete floor.

She was going to be the end of all demons.

“If that's true…you should have left me to die.” Her voice was a broken whisper as it all began to sink in, filling her with a sense of dread about what her future held. What reason could she have for doing something so terrible, so horrifying? There must have been millions of demons roaming the planet and she was going to kill them all.

She listened to him moving across the room and stared at his boots as they appeared in her view.

“I probably should have gone through with my duty and executed you,” he said and she tensed, her body going rigid with fear at those words. He was supposed to be her executioner? “But I could not sense anything bad about you, I did not see anything like that in your blood. I am uncertain as to how it happened or how it is possible for me to see what I have, but I did, and I could not ignore it.”

She slowly raised her head and met his eyes. They had a distant look in them, one that told her a lot about him. Deep inside there was a part of him that wished he had done his duty, but there had been another part of him that hadn't been able to bring himself to go through with it. He seemed like the kind of man who valued his standing amongst his family, who awoke every night to fulfil his duty to his house to the best of his abilities. This kind of man would see honour in dying to protect something dear to him, and it was clear that his family and his position were very close to his heart.

So what could he have possibly seen to make him change his mind, to make him go against his orders and rescue her when he should have been killing her? She couldn't imagine what it would take to turn someone like him against his own bloodline. She knew the laws, knew that he had broken at least one of them in helping her.

He was still looking at her, his eyes never having strayed from hers the whole time she was thinking. There was a hint of sadness in them, hidden just below the surface but not far enough away for her not to see it. She still couldn't get over how they almost perfectly matched the green eyes of a Caelestis vampire in its demon guise.

He moved slightly and she found the courage to ask him another question.

“What did you see?”

He looked at the wall behind her and his brows drew into a thoughtful frown. “Battles, blood, you…it was all hazy, but you seemed to be fighting to get to something or someone. There was a door. You looked as though you were fighting to save…and I…you said…”

“Valentine?” she said.

His eyes met hers. They were wide, making him look as though he'd seen a ghost rather than heard her say his name. Had he seen himself in her blood? Had she spoken to him?

He turned away, avoiding looking at her by staring at the door.

How could he have seen things in her blood that hadn't happened yet? Had it somehow show him her future? She struggled to remember anything eventful that had happened during her life as a vampire and came up with nothing. All the years she'd spent locked away in the house had seemingly been passed in the same way. Her thoughts went back to what he'd said. It was so familiar and she realised why.

“I have dreams like that. They started recently. I dream of great battles, of demons and witches,” she said and kept her eyes fixed on him. He looked over at her but didn't say anything. “Why do they call me an abomination? Is it because of these things I can see? They're not dreams are they? My blood wouldn't show you a dream.”

“A vampire has never been known to have visions, but it is possible that what you are seeing is one.” He moved over to the table where the passports were. His air turned awkward and she frowned as she realised he'd avoided her first question.

“Why am I an abomination?” She repeated it, letting him see that he wasn't getting away without answering it.

“I honestly do not know. Maybe because they fear you.”

She supposed that they had every right to fear her if she really was the child of the prophecy. She wondered if that was why she hadn't been allowed to talk to most of the vampires in her house and why they weren't allowed to speak to her. They all probably knew who she was and what she was going to do. If they had spoken to her, they may have accidentally revealed things to her that would have raised questions in her mind. Iona, her mother, knew exactly what she was and yet she'd tried to keep her hidden. Arkalus had said that their mother had been a fool and not worthy of running the house. Something in her heart said that she wasn't the only one in grave danger now. Arkalus would use this new turn of events to attempt to overthrow their mother and take her place as master of their bloodline. She couldn't believe that everyone had known about her all this time and no one had said a word.

Not even Serenity.

How could her maid and best friend have kept so quiet about it? They had spent long sleepless days and restless nights talking about how cruel it was that she was kept shut up inside the mansion. Not once had her friend told her that there was a dark and horrible reason she was a prisoner in her own home. If she had known that leaving the house to hunt would lead to things like this happening, then she would have remained indoors. She would never have gone against her mother.

Now, she was going to kill her family. She was going to kill Iona, and Serenity. She was going to kill every member of the pure bloodlines of Aurorea, Venia, Vehemens, Validus, Tenebrae, and Nocens. She was going to kill all of the bastard bloodlines that infested the planet. She was going to kill the demons that walked in both day and night. She was going to kill everything.

Even Valentine, who had dared to rescue her from death.

She pressed her hand into her stomach as it turned over. “I don't feel so good.”

“It must be overwhelming to suddenly be faced with all of this.”

She barely heard what he'd said as she screwed her face up in agony and struggled against her desire to change. She looked into his eyes as the bones of her face shifted to allow her fangs to descend, and her vision and senses sharpened.

“The Hunger is not helping,” he said in a matter of fact tone and placed the passports into a bag. “It will pass. It happens to us all when we have executed our first kill.”

She shook her head and forced her demon guise to recede. The Hunger? She'd read about that. Her tutor, Tiberius, had taught her about the symptoms; the incredible craving for blood that it awakens inside you and the way it seems impossible to slake your thirst.

“Get some rest. We shall be safe here for now. When evening falls then we shall go to the airport.”

“To England,” she muttered to herself.

“To Paris.” He corrected her.

“Paris?”

“We will ensure that we were not followed and then we will travel on to England.”

“Followed?” She regarded him with curiosity. “You think they'll follow us so quickly?”

“Not them, no, but a hunter may. I was looking for him when I found you in the cemetery. I have reason to believe that he is in Prague, and he is looking for me. Most hunters are easily dispatched but this is one you should fear.”

“Are we not safe from anyone?”

“No, not any more.” He lightly touched her bare shoulder and she fought to conceal the warm shiver it sent through her. He intimated the blankets he'd laid out in one corner. “Rest. You will need your strength. The Hunger is only going to get worse.”

She did as instructed and lay down on the makeshift bed. Closing her eyes, she thought about everything, from the prophecy to the way his touch felt electric. She couldn't sleep. She could sense him still watching her, standing sentinel beside the door and obviously not intending to sleep himself.

She was going to destroy all demons.

Her family had joined forces with their enemy to hunt her down.

She was no longer safe from anyone.

But she was now certain of something.

All that stood between her and death was the vampire who should have been her executioner.

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